ill 



Class 




Book ' H41 



COPYRIGHT DEmsm 






A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 




THE OLD HYERS HOUSE , CHATHAM, CAPE COD. 
FROM A WOOD BLOCK PRINT BY MARGARET PATTERSON. 



A LOITERER 
IN NEW ENGLAND 



BY 

HELEN W. HENDERSON 

AUTHOR OF "A LOITERER IN NEW YORK," "THE ART TREASURES 
OF WASHINGTON," ETC., ETC. 



NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



r7o 



COPYRIGHT, 1919, 
BV GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



NOV -8 1919 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 



©ci.A5y5r>ii9 



^0 



" It is remarkable that men do not sail the sea 
with more expectation. Nothing remarkable was 
ever accomplished in a prosaic mood. The heroes 
and discoverers have found true more than was pre- 
viously believed, only when they were expectiilg and 
dreaming of something more than their contempo- 
raries dreamed of, or even themselves discovered, 
that is, when they were in a fi'ame of mind fitted to 

behold the truth." 

Thoreau's Cape Cod. 



TO 
VIRGINIA 

There was a section of New England which we knew as 
children as we know our pockets. And our pockets were 
worth knowing in those days, I fancy, — chewing gum, 
pickled limes, blackjacks, and gibraltars. 

You have not seen it for years, yet there it lies — peace- 
ful, serene, eternal — with that sweet wild tang — exactly 
as we knew it together as ardent, eager, adventurous chil- 
dren. 

True there were no " electrics " then circling the cape 
we tramped so diligently on our voyages of discovery. 
The " barge " was our occasional vehicle, the front seat, 
high beside the driver, our place, the ride up from Rock- 
port harried by the haunting uncertainty as to our status 
— guests or passengers. As guests we were dropped famil- 
iarly at the Linwood, the terminus of the route, but when, 
for some reason obscured from our childish comprehension, 
it was necessary to charge us, we were made aware of It 
by the cracking of the whip and swift rounding of the 
curve which landed us grandly at our destination. Though 
the fee was enormous the transaction was proudly tacit. 
We never dreamed of asking. 

On Dogtown Common a few boulders have disin- 
tegrated, leaving strange, rough, pebbly heaps ; but the 
same cows wander through the blueberry bushes over its 
eerie vastness, and stop, surprised at the rare sight of an 
intruding human. The Whale's Jaw, gaping widely on 
the edge of this wild, stony expanse, filled as with ancient 



viii TO VIKGIXIA 

ruins of some prehistoric mortuary range, seems to realize 
that heavy moment : " when churchyards yawn." 

The apples on Pigeon Hill are as hard and as green as 
when you and Sidney Emery and I used to sit in the grass 
by the stone wall and make stolen meals of them. Seven- 
eightlis of the horizon, they used to tell us statistically, 
were visible from the summit of the mound, where those two 
>pare, wintl-ridden elm trees seemed to simulate the pigeon's 
legs, as, we figured, he lay upon his back, pointing his feet 
to the sky. Straitsmouth, Tiuitchor's, and the Salvages 
lie prone upon the water, and one can still see, strangely, 
the interspaces from this bird's-eye vantage, curiously up- 
setting to the normal vision of these islands piled together 
from the lower level. The breakwater, to which we jour- 
neyed endlessly in that little tug. leading the stone scow, 
laden with granite from the quarries for footless dumping, 
stands still a narrow ledge just above high water, and the 
great projecteil harbour has apparently advancetl little 
beyond our memory of it. All about the clear music of 
the shivering chip-chip-chip of splintering granite from 
invisible quarries, buried in masses of sweet fern, bayberry, 
and wild roses, breaks cleanly on the ear. just as it used 
to do. 

The essence of the romance of the horizon seemed always, 
somehow, and still seems to be the unchanging outline of 
Aganienticus, by day — the revolving light of the Isles of 
Shoals, by night. How we looked daily to the former to 
get our barometric bearings ! And how invigorated we 
felt on those tingling mornings wlien all three humps were 
visible — soft, cerulean undulations — high above the 
water line! There were days, you remember, so etheric 
that we could, with the naked eye, make out the houses on 
Appletlore Island, twenty miles away. 



TO VIRGINIA ix 

Rut tlio renl oniotiou was in the tlasli of the revolvinrj 
light— glinmiering, gloaming, vanishing — glimmering, 
gleaming, vanishing — never ceasing, pausing, faithfully 
warning generation after generation of mariners — invin- 
cible, sempiternal symbol. Low down, nestling close to the 
rich indigo waters — glimmering, gleaming, vanisliing — 
glinunering. gloaming, vanishing — I can see it now. I can 
hear, too, the languorous lap of the sea upon the rocks, the 
rusii into tho hidden pools, the heavy plash — sop-sop of 
the Spouting Horn at half tide, the seething retreat of the 
foaming waters over the barnacles, through the dank mesh 
of slippery seaweed, into those depths of malachite beyond 
the border. How far away the stars seemed as we lay as 
late as they would let us on those Hat, white ledges back 
of Way's Folly ! 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Illustkatioxs xiii 

I The New England Island 21 

II The Jumping-On Place : Provincetown 39 

III Cape Cod: Exploration and Discovery . 50 

IV The Back Side of the Cape 73 

V Shifting Sands: The Spit and the Hook 98 

VI The Province Lands 117 

VII The "May Flower's" Voyage: The Fore- 
fathers Discover the Cape 131< 

VIII The Pilgrims at Plymouth 168 

IX Modern Plymouth 196 

X Salem of the Witches 221 

XI The "Captains'" Salem 245 

XII Samuel McIntire's Salem 271 

XIII Boston : The Pear-Shaped Peninsula . C07 

XIV Beacon Hill 327 

XV The Bulfinch Trail 332 

XVI The Kernel of the Nut 380 

X^TI Old Landmarks 396 

X^ III Monumental Boston 412 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

" The Old Hyers House," Chatham, Cape Cod Frontispiece * 

Captain John Smith's Map of New England, 1614 . 2-t 

Part of the Travels of Capt. John Smith amongst 
Turks, Tartars, and others. From History hy 

John Payn 30' 

His Combat with Grualgo ..... .30 

How He Slew Bonny-Mulgro 30 

Three Turks' Heads in a Banner . . . 30 " 

Provincetown Harbour and Railroad Wharf . . 44) 

The Fishing Fleet at Anchor near Railroad Wharf 44 

Chatham Beach. By Margaret Patterson . . 54 

Migrating Geese. By Frank W. Benson ... 66 

" Moonlight." By Frank W. Benson ... 76 

The Back Side : Dunes of the Outer Ridge . . 82 ' 

The Sand Dunes out Back. By Rose Moffett . . 82 

The Uhjsses, Brutus and Volusia sailing from Salem, 

February 21, 1802 90' 

Wrecked on the Beach at Cape Cod ... 90 

A Sand Dune Encroaching upon an Oasis . . 100 ■ 

"Old Forest Beds, Long Since Buried in the Sands, 

Crop out Occasionally" 100 

Salt Works of Loring Crocker at Barnstable, 1872 108 



xiv ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

"The Wind Whirls the Dunes into Fantastic 

Shapes" 114 ^ 

The Province Lands : " Going Gunning." By Dodge 

MacKnight 126 '^ 

The Slender Alien — Italy's Transplanted Torre del 
Mangia — as a Pilgrim Monument on the Tip 
End of Cape Cod 140 ^ 

The Pilgrim ^Monument at Provincctown as Seen 

from the Dunes 140 '^ 

" The Pilgrims on the May Flower," In the Boston 

State House. By Henry Oliver Walker . . 158 ^ 

Edward Winslow. From an Old Portrait in Pilgrim 

Hall, Plymouth 170 

Pilgrim jNIeersteads along Town Brook . . .180 

Ancient Home of Major William Bradford at 

Kingston 190 "' 

Holmes House, Plymouth 190 

"The Clam Digger." By Frank W. Benson . . 198 ^ 

Burial Hill, Plymouth, Showing the Church of the 

Pilgrimage ........ 202 

The Bradford Monument, Burial Hill, Plymouth . 202 

Tombstone of Francis le Baron, " The Nameless 

Nobleman," Burial Hill, Plymouth . . 208 

House of the " Nameless Nobleman " at Falmouth. 

By Sears Gallagher 208 ' 

Mansion at the Corner of Court Square, Plymouth, 

1805 .216 

North Street Throwing out a Left Branch — Wins- / 

low Street — Both Leading to the Harbour . 216 



ILLUSTRATIONS xv 



PAGE 



The House of Seven Gables. Erected 1662, Re- 
modeled 1910 224 ' 

The " Great House," Built by Philip English in 1685 224 - 

Rear of the " Old Witch House " . . . .234 

An Old House Built in 1684, Showing Gables, Over- 
hanging Story and the Lean-to Characteristic of 
the First Period of Salem Architecture . . 234 '^ 

Benjamin Pickman. From a Portrait in the Essex 

Institute, Salem 242 - 

Benjamin Pickman House, 1743. From a Litho- 
graph Made About 1840-50 242- 

The Richard Derby House, 1761, Derby Street, 

Salem 248 ' 

Doorway of the Richard Derby House . . . 248 - 

The Exquisite Carving of the Balusters and Newell 

Post, Richard Derby House 248 

" Derby Wharf." By Philip Little . . . . 248 ' 

Portrait of Elias Hasket Derby. By James Froth- 

ingham ......... 256 

The Mount Vernon of Salem, Owned by Elias Has- 
ket Derby and Commanded by His Son, Captain 

Derby 256 ' 

" Old Wharves, Salem." By Philip Little . . 260 - 
" Coasters, Salem Harbour." By Philip Little . 260 - 

Portrait of Captain Carnes, Peabody Museum, 

Salem * 266 ^ 

Portrait of Captain Benjamin Carpenter, Peabody 

Museum, Salem 266 

Captain Benjamin Crowninshield, Commander of 
Cleo-patra s Barge on Her Mediterranean Voyage 
in 1817 266 - 



xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Cleopatra s Barge, Built by Retire Becket for Cap- 
tain George CroAvninshield ..... 266 

liCtter of jNIarquc, Brig Grand Turk, 1815 . . 266 

JNIcIntire's Original Elevation of the Ezckicl Hersey 

Derby House, 1800 2T2 

Mantel in the Ezekiel Hersey Derby House . . 272 

Mantel Showing Landscape Paper, Captain Cook's 

House, 1801 278 

Entrance Porch to the Georgian Side of Jerathmcel 

Peirce House, 1782 278 

Knocker to the Georgian Door of Jerathmeel Peirce 

House 278 

Georgian Parlour, 1782, of Jerathmeel Peirce House 278 

Mantel and INlirror in the Adam Parlour, Jerathmeel 

Peirce House, 1800 278 

Portrait of Nathaniel Bowditch. By Charles Os- 
good, 1835 ' . . .288 

The Ship Hercules of Salem, Owned by Nathaniel 
West and Commanded b}"^ His Brother, Capt. Ed- 
ward West. Passing the INIole Head of Naples, 
September 13, 1809 288 

Mantel in the Parlour of the Kimball Residence, 

Salem 294 

Kimball House Doorway, 14 Pickman Street . . 294 

Spiral Stairway in the Kimball House . . . 294 

Porch and Doorway of the Peabody-Silsbee House, 

1797 . . ' . . . \ . . .294 

Front Hall and Stairway of David P. Waters House, 

1805 . . . ' 300 



ILLUSTRATIONS xvii 



PAGE 



Dudley L. Pickman House, 1816, No. 27 Chestnut 

Street 300 

The Belles Doorway, No. 8 Chestnut Street, 1810 . 300 

Samuel ]McIntire's chef d^cruvre, the Tea-House 

from the Hersey Derby Farm, Peabody, 1799 . 300 

Eagle Carved by Samuel Mclntire in 1802. From 
the West Gate of the Common, and now on Top 
of the City Hall . 300 

Governor John Winthrop. From an Old Portrait 

in the State House, Ascribed to Van Dyck . .314 

The Common and Beacon Street .... 332 

Portrait of John Hancock. By John Singleton 

Copley 348 

The New Hall of Representatives, State House Ex- 
tension, Showing the Sacred Cod in Place Oppo- 
site the Speakei-'s Chair ...... 354 

Statue of George Washington. By Sir Francis 

Chantrey, London, 1826, Doric Hall, State House 354 

The Bulfinch Building, Massachusetts General Hos- 
pital. By Scars Gallagher 366 

Portrait of Josiah Quincy. By Gilbert Stuart . 384 

Boston, Old and New. By Sears Gallagher . . 390 

The Old State House. By Sears Gallagher . . 398 

Sketch for Statue of Warren. By Paul Wayland 

Bartlett. Warren Square, Roxbury . . . 402 

St. Paul's Cathedral. By Sears Gallagher . . 408 

Equestrian Statue of George Washington. By 

Thomas Ball, Boston, 1859 . . . . ". 414 

Saint Stephen. By Dr. Rimmer .... 414 



xviii ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Falling Gladiator. By Dr. Rimmcr . . . 414 ' 
Colonel Thomas Cass, Statue in the Boston Public 

Gardens. By Richard E. Brooks . . . 420 

"Death Staying the Hand of tlic Sculptor." By 

Daniel Chester French 420 - 

Entrance Boston Public Library .... 430 

Statue of Sir Henry Vane. By Frederick Mac- 

Monnies 430 

" Bacchante." By Frederick MacMonnies . . 434 

Colonnade, Boston Public Library, Showing Frag- 
ment of the Muses by Puvis de Chavannes . . 434 

" Mater Dolorosa." By John Singer Sargent . 434 ' 

John Quincy Adams. By John Singleton Copley . 440 

Self Portrait, Painted in 1849 by William Morris 

Hunt ' . . . . 440 

The Fortune Teller. By William Morris Hunt . 440 ' 

Planting Potatoes. By Jean Francois Millet . . 440 ' 

Head of a Goddess from Chios, Fourth Century b. c' 442 

Aphrodite Marble, Fourth Century b. c. . . . 442 - 

Padmapanl, the Compassionate Lord. Chinese Col- 
lections. I>ate Sixteenth or Early Seventeenth 
Century 442 ' 

^Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels. By 

Fra Angelico 442 

Portrait of Fray Felix Hortensio Palavicino. 

Painted 1609 by El Greco 442 - 



A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 



A LOITERER 
IN NEW ENGLAND 

CHAPTER I 
THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 

That exquisite northeast section of the United 
States, which we know under the apt title of New 
England, presents, in all its many phases, so rich 
a country for leisurely investigation that one stands 
embarrassed upon the threshold of the subject, un- 
certain through which avenue of adventure to lead 
a companion who would make his initial entree into 
this garden spot. 

Every traveller must have remarked the sharp 
existing contrast between the physical character of 
England and Scotland. The moment the north- 
bound train enters upon the border land between 
the two countries there is this strange, satisfying 
difference in all things. The guards speak the 
broad tongue of the Scottish lowlander; beautiful, 
soft downs and rolling, verdant landscape, filled 
with sleek, brown-eyed cattle, give way to wild, 

'■Zl 



22 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

stony, savage pasture for beasts with wide-spread 
horns and shagg}^ coats matted with burs; neat 
hedges and well-kept estates to rough gorse and 
crags, only half dissembled by tangled masses of 
purple heather, which attaches itself abundantly 
to the scanty soil. Men, too, are more stalwart, 
architecture more rugged. There is less atmos- 
phere, less envelopment, more vivid beauty, less 
compromise, more vital frankness. 

So in New England we have but to step across 
the border of the adjoining state to feel at once the 
sharp differentiation, the geological cut-off which 
expresses itself in the general aspect of the land 
and in the thousand and one simple facts of its 
topography, its flora, its fauna, its people, its cus- 
toms, its coast, its climate, and its industries. 

For its physical difference from the neighbour- 
ing states science furnishes the most plausible of 
reasons. By the early discoverers and first comers 
to this continent. New England was thought to be 
an island, a supposition not so very far from the 
truth if one but stop to think of its bold projection 
into the Atlantic on the one side and the chain of 
rivers and lakes on the other which makes its insula- 
tion almost complete. Certain fragments of this 
" physical region " have been divorced from the 
main body politically and nationally. Rationally 



THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 23 

this area, dominated by the New England states, 
includes the British provinces of Nova Scotia and 
New Brunswick, part of Lower Canada, and a nar- 
row slice of the state of New York with Long Is- 
land; but arbitrary boundaries have confined New 
England to about one-half the related district. The 
logical boundaries of the tract or peninsula are the 
long bed of the St. Lawrence and the deep, wide 
chasm which holds the waters of Lake Champlain, 
Lake George, and the Hudson River. 

Geologists say that this part of the earth's surface 
was one of the earliest exposed after the glacial 
epoch, which accounts for the worn character of the 
soil and the granite structure everywhere laid bare 
to view. 

The distinguishing charm of New England re- 
sults largely from its isolation, its immense variety 
within itself ranging from the fertile plains of the 
Connecticut Valley to the densely wooded forests 
of JNIaine, from the lofty peaks of the White INIoun- 
tains to the sinuous sea-coast, alternately rock- 
bound and sandy, following the outline of the pen- 
insula for seven or eight hundred miles. 

Everything is beautifully logical in the locations 
of the original New England towns planted down 
its coast line from Maine to Rhode Island, a coast 
line immensely varied, indented by estuaries of 



24 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

divers extent, forming commodious harbours 
throughout its length for the different aspects of 
commerce, defence, and trade. While the capes, 
hooks, and islands made it jjossible for the mariner 
to hve close to his pursuits, small or spacious inlets 
provided peace and security for the founding of the 
greater towns. The harbours of Portland, Boston, 
and Newport, by their ample, deep, accessible 
waters were ideally made for settlement and the 
establishment of vast commercial enterprise; while 
Portsmouth, Newburyport, Gloucester, Salem, 
New Bedford, Providence, New London, and 
New Haven, in the early days grew out of the ro- 
bust maritime activities, initiated by these ports. 

Though not its first discoverer. New England 
owes its name to Captain John Smith, that roman- 
tic navigator, who explored this coast in an open 
boat from the mouth of the Penobscot River to 
Cape Cod. He set out from Downs, in the spring 
of 1614, with two ships equipped by a few London 
merchants, and " chanced to arrive " at IMonhegan, 
in the month of April. He had with him some 
forty-five men and boys, and while most of them 
were collecting a cargo of fish and furs with which 
to appease the " adventurers " who had financed the 
enterprise, Smith and eight or nine of those who 
might best be spared, "ranged the coast in a small 




New England 










0(V A 



N<5 



;^ 







^< ^-<^P/v 






Lfe±__' 



(CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH's MAP OK NEW ENGLAND, 1614: 

"the most remaroueable parts thus named by the high and 
mighty prince charles prince of great britaine." 



THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 25 

boat," and made the survey upon which is based 
Smith's handsome map, and collected the notes 
afterward elaborated into his " Description of New 
England." This description, together with the map, 
Smith addressed and delivered to Prince Charles, 
afterwards Charles I, with the plea that he would 
change the barbarous native names " for such Eng- 
lish as posterity may say : Prince Charles was their 
Godfather." 

Smith was a naif fisherman. "Our plot," he 
writes, "was to take whales & make try alls of a 
Myne of Gold and Copper. If thofe failed, Fifh 
and Furres was then our refuge, to make ourfelues 
fauers howfoeuer: we saw many, spent much time 
in chafing them, but could not kill any." The 
master of the vessels. Smith discovered, knew less 
than himself of such matters, and he laments that 
by late arrival and "long lingering about the 
whale " the prime of both hunting and fishing sea- 
sons had passed " ere we perceived it, we thinking 
their seasons served at all times: but we found it 
otherwise." 

Smith laboured three times as long for New 
England as he did for the Virginia colony, with 
which his name is so generally identified. A 
doughty hero, the much made of Pocahontas ad- 
venture, upon which popular ignorance has fast- 



26 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

ened as the chief event of his hfe, was but a mere in- 
cident in a career filled with similar escapes and 
desperate hazards of all kinds. 

Having looked the coast over, Smith attempted a 
second voyage to New England, in June, 1615, set- 
ting out with thirty men to settle on the coast of 
Maine, near Pemaquid. At the outset of this ex- 
pedition he was chased three times by pirates and 
finally captured by a French man-of-war through 
the cowardice and perfidy of his associates. At 
each encounter the crew implored Smith to ^neld, 
claiming that they were hired to fish and not to 
fight ; but twice he brought them to terms by threat- 
ening to fire the powder and " split the ship," unless 
they stood to the defence. 

In the third encounter thej^ were chased by four 
French men-of-war and Smith, who spoke the lan- 
guage, was persuaded to board the Frenchman as 
interpreter. No sooner had he stepped from his 
vessel than master, mate, and pilot abandoned their 
leader without further parley, leaving him with 
nothing but his " wastecoat " and breeches. " I 
am not the first hath beene betrayed by pirats," 
says Smith, piqued by his capture, " and foure men 
of warre, prouided as they were, had beene suffi- 
cient to haue taken Sampson, Hercules, and Alex- 
ander the Great, no other way f urnisht than I was." 



THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 27 

The master of the shi]) was Hunt, the same 
who, as we shall later see, abused the savages and 
captured and sold a number of them as slaves, in 
Spain. Smith does not hesitate to accuse Hunt of 
having robbed him of his " ])l()ts " and observations, 
intending to make capital of them upon his return 
to England by passing them off as his own. But 
Smith wrote the whole " discourse " from memory, 
during his three months' captivity in the gun room 
of the French vessel. This he did as much to cir- 
cumvent his enemy as to keep his "perplexed 
thoughts from too much meditation " of his miser- 
able estate. 

From August to November Smith was kept 
prisoner by the pirates serving an odious regime. 
When English boats were encountered he was kept 
below and not allowed to speak on pain of death, 
lest his identity be disclosed, but against the SjDan- 
ish or other foreigners he was armed and made to 
fight for his captors. Finding them little inclined 
to set him free and greatly mistrusting the ultimate 
issue, Smith finally took reckless measures to es- 
cape. At the end of such a storm that beat them 
all under hatches, he watched his opportunity to get 
ashore in their boat. Under cover of black night 
he secretly got into the dinghy, armed with a half 
pike, and put adrift for Rat He: but says the narra- 



28 A 1A)1TKKEU IN NK>V KNGLAXl) 

tivo, "the Current was so stroiio- and the Sea so 
i>reat, 1 went a drift to Sea, till it pleased God the 
winde so turned with the tide, that although 1 was, 
all tliis t'earl'uU ni^ht o\' n'usts and rainc\ in the Sea, 
the spaee of twelve houres, when many ships were 
driuen ashore, and diuerse split (anil heini>- with 
seulling and baylini»' the water tired) at last I ar- 
riued in an oa/.ie He by CJiaroxciw: where eertaine 
fowlers found niee neere dnnvned, and half dead, 
with water, ei^lde. and hunger." 

Upon his return to Kngland Smith published his 
narrative with his map of the eoast, and upon this 
ehart we tind the name, Xew Kngland, first ap])lied 
to a eountry previously known to the KnL»lish as 
Xorth Virginia. Prinee Charles eontirmed the 
names suggested by the explorer and the two re- 
named the prineipal ]HMnts of interest. Some of 
these persist, sueh as Plymouth for the Knglish 
town: the river Charles, for the god-father prinee: 
and Cape Ann, or Anna, so named for Charles' 
mother, Anne oi' Denmark. Smith's first name 
i'ov Cape Aim had been Tragabigv.anda, after a 
Turkish sweetheart who had reseued him from 
slavery in Turkey, 

They altered Cape Cod, so named by Gi^snold, 
to Cape James in honour of the king: ealled the har- 
bour ^lilford Haven, and the bav Stuards Bav, to 



THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 29 

immortalize the reigning house of England. And 
the islands now known as the Jsles of Shoals, con- 
stitute the ^(m\) to which the celehrated navigator 
gave his c)wn name — " Smyth's lies are a heape to- 
geather, none neere them, against Accominticus " 
— but, as an old book puts it, the ingratitude of 
man has denied his memor\' this frail tribute. 

Straitsmouth, Thatcher's, and Milk islands, near 
Cape Ann, "far to the sea in regard of the head- 
land," Smith callerl the Three Turks' Heads — the 
name has disa})ijeared except for an inn at I^and's 
End which holds to the suggestive title. This was 
in memory of Smith's youthful adventure at the 
siege of Regall, as related in his narrative, when, 
having enlisted as a soldier of fortune, he won the 
three Turks' heads in three single combats. 

The Christians had encamped at Regall and 
while they were entrenching themselves, the Turks, 
to relieve the ennui of waiting, sent this challenge 
to any captain in the Christian army: " That to de- 
light the Ladies, who did long to see some court- 
like pastime, the Lord Turbashaw did defie any 
caj)taine, that had the command of a Company, 
who durst cornbate him for his head." The 
Christians accepted the challenge and cast lots to 
decide which of their captains should enter the con- 
test. The choice fell to Captain John Smith and 



30 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

a truce was arranged while the assemblage gathered 
to see the joust. 

TiH'bashaw entered the field with a noise of 
"Howboyes" ; he was well mounted and armed and 
wore a pair of wings made of eagles' feathers 
"within a ridge of silver, richly garnished with gold 
and precious stones " : a Janizary before him bore 
his lance and another led his horse. Smith, with 
the blare of trumpets, only, passed with coiu'teous 
salute, took his ground and upon the signal, passed 
his lance "throw the sight of his Beaver, face, head, 
and all." The knight fell to the ground and Smith 
alighting unbraced the other's helmet and cut off 
his head, while the Turks took his body. 

Grulago, as the narrative says, his heart swelled 
by the death of his captain, challenged the con- 
queror to regain Turbashaw's head or lose his own. 
The first bout witli lances brought accident to 
neither combatant; then with pistols Smith 
woimded his adversary's left arm, so that he was 
thrown to the ground and so bruised by the fall 
that he too lost his head. 

Whereupon Smith began to form a taste for the 
play and in his turn challenged any Turk to come 
to the place of combat to redeem in the same man- 
ner, the heads of his companions. This was ac- 
cepted by Bonny-]Mulgro and lances and pistols 



Hi! three hmile C puivati Lhujj- n ■ 
H'.S Zvcounler wttfi TVKBASHAW{'n,ii' 




PART OF THE TRAVELS OK CAPT. JOHN SMITH AiUONGST TURKES, 
TARTARS, AND OTHERS, EXTRACTED OUT OF THE HISTORY BY JOHN PAYN. 
HIS ENCOUNTER WITH TURBASHAW. 

Hts Comsat tpttfi GRVAIyGO-^Taw' of three ftundrficl fior [men 
/~ r J.J ■ -* 





HOW 11 K SI K\V 1!0N\ V-MVl i,K( 



Tfi ree T\TR. K S ffuds in a cjunner^djiuim him J-gr Ar>r?t^y . C .'!.;;^ 







i&/rtf Dr fruJphf 

THKKK TIKKS' HK.\1>S 1\ A BANNER GIVEN HIM FOR ARME; 
AND HOW HK WAS rKESEMEl) TO PRINlE SIGISM UNHUS. 



THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 31 

failing, Smith drew upon his third adversary his 
Faulcliion and " pierced the Turke so under the 
cutlets, thorow backe and body that although he 
alighted from his horse he stood not long ere hee 
lost his head as the rest had done." 

This success gave great encouragement to the 
whole army. A quaint print depicts the scene in 
which as Smith describes, "with a guard of six 
thousand, three spare horses, before each a Turke's 
head upon a lance, he (Smith) was conducted to 
the Generall's Pavillion with his presents." The 
heads our warrior presented to Zachel Moyses, the 
general of the army; he received them with much 
respect, as the occasion deserved, " embracing him 
in his arms" and presenting him with a "fair horse, 
richly furnished, a Semitere and a belt worth three 
hundred ducats," in addition to which he was made 
Sergeant-JNIajor of his regiment. 

If Smith's explorations and discoveries of the 
New England coast are little known to the casual 
public, those of the sicu?' de Cliamplain are even 
more buried in obscurity; yet in comparison with 
the careful, methodical work of the French ex- 
plorer in this region, the flying visits of the English 
to this coast were both hasty and superficial. Gos- 
nold and Pring, who preceded Champlain, had 
brought back only vastly entertaining stories of 



32 A i.OlTKUilU i.\ M:\V ENGLAND 

adventure and discursive comment; the journal of 
Weymoutli, who was on the coast o{ Elaine at about 
tlie same time as Champlain, is local and indetinite; 
Champlain's exploration of the N ew Kngland coast, 
on the other hand, was thorough and scientitic, and 
his '■ \ovages.'' in soundness and in richness of de- 
tail, stand as luu'ivalled authoritv in the tield of 
which they treat. He pictures the native Indian in 
his primitive simplicity before his mode of life had 
been intlueneed by contact with Kuropean civiliza- 
tion. whii.h gives to these writings a preeminent 
importance for the scholar. 

Champlain's charts and descriptions cover over 
a thousand miles of sea-coast, from the northeastern 
extremity of Nova Scotia to the Vineyard Somid, 
belo^v Cape Co<l. His text is clear and lucid, and 
rich in entertaining detail. Sou% enirs of his pas- 
sage are rarely left in the ixx*asional Freneh-deriveil 
names, especially in Maine, as Blount Desert, called 
by Champlain, Us Monts Dest'rts. Sacx) and Ken- 
nebec, fron\ ChouaiX>et and Qui ni be qutf. the 
French transcriptions of the aboriginal names. 
Following the coast he saw the verdant tops of the 
long belt of broken ranges which form the north- 
eastern continuation of the Appalachian System, 
this side of the Hudson Kiver. and called them les 
mont9 verts, frv^m which Vermont takes its name. 



TITK XKW K\c;i.ANl) ISLAND 33 

Champlain entered IMassachusetts Bay and sailed 
into Hoston Harbour, anchoring at Noddle's Is- 
land, now East Boston, and here he saw his first 
log' canoe and describes how it was made. They 
saw here a river, fort spacicuse, undoubtedly the 
Charles at its eontluenee with the JNIystic, and this, 
in honour o( the sicur iIc Monts was called la riviere 
du Gas. 

In addition to his descriptions of the coast Cham- 
plain made numerous to])ographical drawings of 
many of the more remarkable })laces, such as the 
harbour of Plymouth, wliich he called Pari du Cap 
St. IjOnys, Nauset and Chatham harbours, Glouces- 
ter Harbour, the bay of Saco. In their ensemble 
these charts constitute a more complete map of 
New Kngland than was made for many years after, 
serving as models for most of the subsequent maps 
of the coast down to comi)aratively recent times. 
Upon this work Champlain spent over three years, 
from ^lay, 1004, to September, 1607, and after his 
return to France prepared his elaborate report for 
King Henri IV, illustrated with fifty-two charts in 
his own hand. Sueh work fitted in with that inteUi- 
gent monarch's ambitions as one of the builders of 
France, and the explorer was ennobled for bis 
pains and retained by the court. In one of his 
reports Champlain makes the first recorded sug- 



34 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

gestion of the practical utility of a ship canal across 
the Isthmus of Panama. 

Champlain's work was typical of the great initia- 
tive of his nation; he laid superb foundations for 
what should have been La Nouvelle France, but its 
development was left to others and the superstruc- 
ture in later years was built by alien hands. 

The founders of New England were English- 
men, intensely English. Their immigration began 
in 1620 with the tentative voyage of the May 
Flower, struggled for foothold during the first nine 
years, during which time it is estimated that but 
seven hundred colonists peopled the neighbourhood 
of Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay, was most 
active through the eleven years that Charles I ruled 
England without a parliament, and practically 
ceased after the year 1640, when the total popula- 
tion of the colonies was little more than 20,000 per- 
sons. A glance at the village burying-grounds of 
New England, showing the constant recurrence of 
familiar names, will show how this original group 
multiplied on its own soil, as Palfrey says, in re- 
markable seclusion. During a period of almost 
two hundred years their identity was unimpaired. 
" No race has ever been more homogeneous," says 
the historian, " than this remained do^vn to the time 
of the generation now upon the stage (1858) . With 



THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 35 

near approach to precision it may be said that the 
millions of living persons either born in New Eng- 
land or tracing their origin to natives of that region, 
are descendants of the 21,000 English who came 
over before the early emigration ceased upon the 
meeting of the Long Parliament." 

The chance exceptions took no root upon our 
soil and affected little the homogeneous environ- 
ment. Cromwell, after his victories at Dunbar and 
Worcester, in 1652, sent a few hundred Scottish 
prisoners out to Boston, but their descendants are 
negligible. About one hundred and fifty French 
Huguenot families took refuge in Massachusetts in 
1685, after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 
but the families have died out, though here and 
there a name such as Revere, Faneuil, or Bowdoin 
persists, in the names of streets, squares, or build- 
ings, to recall the circumstance. And finally, in 
1719, Londonderry, New Hampshire, received one 
hundred and twenty Scotch-Irish families as set- 
tlers. But even to this day foreigners in New Eng- 
land remain unassimilated, though they flourish 
ever so briskly, as have the Irish in Boston. 

The New Englander, by inherent exclusiveness, 
has remained a singularly unmixed race, the more 
singular since it springs from a peculiar type of 
Englishman of the seventeenth century — the Sep- 



36 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

aratist, the Dissenter, the Puritan, in fine. This 
matter, as Fiske has said, comes to have more than 
a local interest when we reflect that from these men 
have come at least one-fourth of the present popu- 
lation of the United States. Sequestered from for- 
eign contact, these people, down to the Revolution 
had little acquaintance even with the other colo- 
nists in this country, and it remained for that great 
conmion cause to bring New England into touch 
with her allied communities in that conflict. 

Emigrations beyond the area of the " physical re- 
gion " were almost unknown until after the middle 
of the eighteenth century, when the great feeling 
for expansion throughout the continent began to 
drive the New Englander into New York State 
and through the ^Middle West, while the stimulus of 
the gold fever of '49 carried liim in swarms as far 
as the Pacific coast. A coloured map of the region 
now occupied by the expansion of the New English 
colonies shows how that mere fringe of early settled 
country has spread in an almost unbroken tide over 
the entire north of our country, carrying its names 
— Springfield, Salem, Portland, Quincy — to the 
harbours of the Pacific, and spotting its settlements 
along the borders of the southern states. 

At the same time the development of the natural 
resources of New England itself — its quarries, its 



THE NEW ENGLAND ISLAND 37 

fisheries, its industries operated by the partial har- 
nessing* of its immense water power, has brought 
into the country at a recent date literally hordes of 
foreigners of the working class, and these in places 
begin to dominate the population. Still the New 
Englander — the "native" as we call him — runs 
true to form; he holds himself aloof and refuses to 
absorb the alien. Absorption of the native by the 
alien is of course impossible and many of the 
smaller villages exhibit the touching spectacle of a 
frail remnant of the New English population try- 
ing to hold out against the overwhelming invasion. 
Whole villages of French Canadians have grown 
up through the central part of Massachusetts in the 
suite of the cotton mills; the Cordage works at 
Plymouth supports a large town of Italian em- 
ployes ; the Portuguese have their stronghold upon 
Cape Cod ; the Swedes and Finns form a formidable 
percentage of the residents on Cape Ann and exclu- 
sively operate the granite quarries of that exquisite 
section. One has only to observe a fete day in 
Boston to see the ancient Common in the possession 
of the polyglots from the North End; to see our 
Fourth of July or Memorial Day celebrated with 
all the fanfare of the mi-carcmc, ex})l()ited by Irish 
orators, while a fringe of wondering descendants of 
the patriots hesitates without the railings, or lingers 



38 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

upon fragmentary Bulfinch balconies, like ghosts 
at a feast. 

What does it mean? Where will it end? Can 
it be that a few more turns of the kaleidoscope, the 
passing of a mere generation or two will see all that 
quaint, typical flavour of the true New Englander 
modified, irretrievably changed by the alien in- 
trusion ? 



CHAPTER II 

THE JUMPING-ON PLACE: PROV- 
INCETOWN 

All things considered the most logical and ro- 
mantic port of entry into New England is the old 
way, known to the early navigators of history — 
through the harbour of Cape Cod. We, in our nar- 
row landsman fashion, are wont to think of Prov- 
incetown, at the tip end of the Cape, as the literal 
jumping-off place of the continent. For us it lies 
isolated at the end of an extremely wearisome rail- 
way, operated, during the greater part of the year, 
by but two trains daily, which leave its opposing 
termini at the crack of dawn, pass each other about 
midday, and get back to cover some time in the 
watches of the night. 

There is a strong affinity between the Cape train 
and the old stage coach which it displaces. Formerly 
the terminus of the "Cape Cod Railway" was at 
Sandwich — the beginning of the Cape. One took 
the cars for Sandwich and thence made the rest of 
the journey, a matter of some sixty-five miles, by 
easy stages in a rumbling vehicle over heavy sand 

39 



40 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

roads, to Provincetown, the most bizarre of New 
England villages, tucked away in the innermost 
curve of the spiral turn of the peninsula. 

Thoreau, in his matchless work on Cape Cod, has 
left us a homely picture of stage coach travel there 
in 1849. He speaks of the broad and invulnerable 
good humour of the passengers: " They were what 
is called free and easy, and met one another to ad- 
vantage as men who had at length learned how to 
live. They appeared to know each other when they 
were strangers, they were so simple and downright. 
They were well met, in an unusual sense, that is, 
they met as well as they could meet, and did not 
seem to be troubled with any impediment. They 
were not afraid nor ashamed of one another, but 
were contented to make just such a company as the 
mgredients allowed." 

Things on the Cape have changed very little since 
Thoreau's day, and the lumbering accommodation 
train is but an amplified stage coach in all its essen- 
tial characteristics. 1 happened to take it from 
Boston late one afternoon in the month of October, 
when the state fair was on in Brockton. We were 
listed as an express to ]\Iiddleboro, but this appar- 
ently was optional and at the discretion of the con- 
ductor — or may indeed have been provided for in 
one of those tantalizing little footnotes to the time 



THE JUMPING-ON PLACE 41 

table which seem designed to trip the unwary 
traveller in New England. 

I could imagine these train schedules to be the 
chef d'oeuvre of some body of retired school teachers, 
long practised in the art of trapping scholars. I 
remember reading joyfully Jerome K. Jerome's 
description of the intricacies of the Continental time 
tables, of the "demon expresses that arrive at their 
destinations forty-seven minutes before they start 
and leave again before they get there." But these 
trains are frankly mystifying, whereas the Old Col- 
ony schedules appear at first glance very simple, 
the pitfalls being artfully concealed by ingenious 
devices. 

Trains scheduled clearly to depart daily at the 
top of the column are qualified in various ways by 
numerous tiny letters tucked in here and there in 
out-of-the-way places, each one having a separate 
and vital significance, explained in a kind of glos- 
sary at the back of the volume. After making an 
heroic effort to catch a train plainly indicated as 
due at a given time it is rather maddening to have 
that train either fail to turn up at all or glide by at 
full speed before one's baffled expectancy ; the more 
so when turning to the one available official, that 
laconic functionary points to an adroitly hidden 
**q," which may mean that the train does not make 



42 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

this stop on this particular day of the month, or that 
it is a special for the first and tliird Saturdays dur- 
ing August, or that it does not run at all after the 
first of Septeniher, though it continues to appear on 
the winter schedule. 

Just as I was settling down to a peaceful perusal 
of my hooks and papers, in the expansive freedom 
of a whole seat to myself in a comparatively empty 
car. with an hour of daylight hefore we were due to 
encounter the unknown at ^liddlehoro, the train 
gave a succession of short, sharp shocks and came 
to a tremhling and apparently unpremeditated 
halt, and hehold Brockton, its platform thronged 
by an eager crowd pressing towards the ends of the 
cars, and in upon our quiet streamed the motley 
trippers, sated with the joys and excitements of the 
fair, filling the train to its capacity, bulging over 
into the aisles, joking, laughing, recounting the 
news of a large day, and disposing of their nimier- 
ous and bulky packages in the racks overhead or 
piling them upon capacious laps until one was quite 
submerged and dwarfed by them. 

Yet Thoreau was still right — they were free and 
easy, but they met one another to advantage. They 
appeared to know me though I was a stranger, they 
were so simple and downright. They were not 
afraid nor ashamed of one another, but were con- 



THE JU:MPIXG-0X place 43 

tented to make just such a company as the ingre- 
dients allowed. 

As the train wandered down the Cape with in- 
cessant stops there was no cessation in the talk or 
in the movement. We were all acquainted now 
and there was an endless swapping of places and 
readjustment of families and packages. At every 
station the fatherly conductor would descend metic- 
ulously and announce sonorously and with pre- 
cision that this was the train for Buzzards Bay, 
Barnstahle, Yarmouth, Provincetown, and all "sta- 
shuns'' do^Mi Cape. It became a kind of chant, 
and the assurance from such reliable authority that 
this was indeed the Cape train, never failed of its 
impressiveness to those who had waited long for its 
coming. 

Hearty farewells delayed us still further, but 
who would have cut them short ? It was all part of 
the experience. Every time we slowed up at a 
station, big or little, we made our effect — for this 
was the event of the evening in Cape Cod. We 
brought the news of the outside world, and while 
mothers, fathers, sweethearts, and wives were being 
kissed and welcomed home again, half the train 
would be hanging out of the windows shouting 
greetings to neighbouring villagers, the regulars 
taking up conversation where they had left it in 



44 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

the iiiorniiig; and the train men wouUl hustle the 
heavy bags out of the mail eoaeh and heave the 
bundles of evening papers to the waiting trueks, 
the while themselves exchanging civilities with 
friends and relatives and despite the austerity of 
their uniforms turning out to be quite as human 
as the rest. 

Every station saAv the departure of a consider- 
able group, and at each in the descending scale, we 
took aboard a less number of transients, yet we did 
not thin out perceptibly until we had arrived at the 
first of the divers Brewsters, between Yarmouth 
and Orleans. By this time night had descended in 
full force and we seemed to be drawn, by the elimi- 
nation of the landscape and by the feeble light of the 
car, concentrated in spots along the ceiling, into a 
closer intimacy — the darkness without shutting us 
within the circle of our own light. 

From time to time the wind would dash the sand, 
through which we were travelling, with a sharp hiss- 
ing sound, against the sides of the car or upon the 
windows. Looking out, one's view was confined to 
the small zone illuminated by the light from the 
windows; but the air kept freshening and one 
sensed the proximity of the sea though one could 
not see it. Sometimes we appeared to dash through 
scrubby woods and there would be the scent of the 



..-;»«^...>j»y y i.,l ,| ..| .yjjy . a || |,»j^| l ^j^l^ I , I'Jgj f .ltlH 




I'UOVINCETOVVN IIARIIOl'R A.\l) KAII.KOAD WIIAKF, 



THE FISHING FLEET AT 
ANCHOR NEAR RAILROAD 
WHARF. 




THE JUMPIXG-OX PLACE 45 

pines and the bayberry bushes. Always wilder 
and more trackless seemed the way. 

Within the vehicle many were sleeping; others 
were munching portions of cold lunches put up in 
view of the certainty of delay, and as the guard, in 
his pleasant vernacular, roared "Brewster," against 
the swish of the sand, the rattle of the wheels over 
the rails, and the shrieking of the engine, a sleepy 
voice inquired with drollery: "How many more 
Brewsters have we got to go through?" "I don't 
know," a woman answered, "but I dread the 
Truros!" It is true that we seemed to box the 
compass in Truro before we got clear of the town- 
ship. 

Our sandiest stretch lay between the last Truro 
and ProvincetowTi — Truro and "Cape Cod," as 
the old writers, since Captain Gosnold, designate 
this finisterre, that region of sand dunes north and 
west of the abrupt termination of the highlands of 
the Cape. We could see both the Highland Light 
at High Head in Truro, on the ocean side and the 
gleam from the small lighthouse on Long Point, 
which guards the entrance to the harbour, from the 
same side of the train as we pushed along through 
the scrubby woods planted throughout its length to 
protect the railroad from the encroaching dunes. 
This will illustrate the spiral bending of the land 



46 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

from Pamet River to Long Point enclosing the 
harbour, which from every point of the compass is 
completely land locked. 

Arrived at last the engine gave a shuddering sigh 
and came to rest before a small station and a very 
long platform, while the track continued on out 
across the main street to the end of railroad wharf 
far out into the harbour, to connect w^ith the boats, 
making as it were, a kind of endless chain of com- 
merce. 

Though everybody in Provincetown had Avaited 
up for the arrival of the train, short work was 
made of the business of coming to port. The few 
new arrivals were met and hurried to snug quarters; 
a httle wagon received the mail bags, and boys with 
pushcarts attended to the transference of the even- 
ing papers from the train to the small village shop 
on the main street which now became the centre of 
attraction. The boys were followed through the 
short cut to the paper shop by the entire attendance 
from the train spectacle, their way impeded by the 
eager crowd who behaved very much as chickens do 
wiien they see their food held high by the adminis- 
tering human at meal time, their whole attention 
centred on the main chance. Within the shop en- 
sued an imdignified scuffle for the papers, doled 
out, however, by a rigorously impartial hand. 



THE JU^IPINO-ON PLACP: 47 

At the same moment impelled by the same thirst 
for news — the only thirst that may be slaked in 
Provincetown — the fishermen began to come up 
out of the sea, their rubber boots chuncking down 
the long wharf. These had a great advantage over 
the landsmen in being able to watch the progress of 
the train by its line of smoke against the sky from 
way beyond Puritan Heights and to calculate to the 
minute the time of its arrival and thus avoid spend- 
ing any more time than absolutely necessary in a 
town for which they, as connoisseurs of ports, have 
a mild contempt. " I would n't change my clothes 
to go ashore in Provincetown," a Gloucester fisher- 
man told me, taking his exercise, in his fishing out- 
fit, at the end of the railroad wharf ; and so, luckily, 
they do not, and Provincetown, above most fishing 
villages, gets the full local colour of its chief indus- 
try — the oil skins, the sou'westers, hip boots, and 
picturesque equipment in general lending to the 
town a distinctive character. 

For about half an hour after the arrival of the 
evening train Provincetown wears the false aspect 
of a busy metropolis. JNlen stand under the lights 
that stream from high shop windows, to scan the 
headlines of their evening pa])ers while waiting for 
the final excitement of the day — the sorting and 
distribution of the mail. The rival movies which 



48 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

let out at about this time add to the congestion of 
the narrow sidewalk and the released audience con- 
gregates at the post office, already filled with hope- 
ful letter seekers, lined up before the blankness of 
the closed window, or peering critically through the 
pigeon holes at the harried clerks, like expert card 
sharks watching the clumsy efforts of an inex- 
perienced dealer, and itching to get a hand at it 
themselves. 

The newcomer by the night train might suppose 
himself landed in a very lively little place until he 
has seen the rapid reabsorption of the sudden crowd. 
The night seems to soak up the villagers like a 
sponge; into their homes they go like the blowing 
out of lights ; the sailors and fishermen drop off the 
ends of wharves, row out to their ships in the twink- 
ling harbour, their voices and the thug-thug of the 
oars against the wooden thole pins striking hollow 
and echoless upon the ear long after their black ac- 
cents are lost in the enveloping dark. Perhaps the 
whole thing most resembles a scene from grand 
opera, where the ever ready chorus at a given signal 
streams upon the bare stage, animating every de- 
tail of its factitious setting, only to fade away again 
nobod}^ knows whither, at the voice of the prompter. 

Thus Provincetown viewed inversely from the 
land lubber's standpoint — a tiny terminus town at 



THE JUMPING-ON PLACE 49 

the tip of an irregular peninsula, pulled out from 
the southeastern extremity of New England east- 
erly into the Atlantic Ocean for forty miles, bent 
round at nearly a right angle to hold the lower basin 
of Massachusetts Bay, and thence extending north- 
erly thirty-five miles, with a gentle list to the west, 
where its final strip of tapering sands vanishes in 
north latitude 42° 4'. 

Everything depends upon the point of view. In- 
accessible by land, to those who sail the seas Prov- 
incetown lies on one of the broad highways of com- 
merce, and " he is lucky," says Thoreau, " who does 
not run afoul of it in the dark." Sailors from all 
quarters of the globe touch there in the course of 
the year — all languages and many patois are heard 
at the end of railroad wharf — strange ships dip 
anchor from time to time at the mouth of the 
harbour. 



CHAPTER III 

CAPE COD: EXPLORATION AND 
DISCOVERY 

The adventurers of remoter centuries found 
Provincetown directly in the way of navigation, and 
most of those who visited these shores were caught 
by the long projecting hook of the Cape, and gath- 
ered ashore, at least briefly, at this spot. From 
the mythical visits of the Norsemen, in 1004, down 
to 1620, when the May Flower strayed into this 
harbour, in quest of a suitable place to plant her 
colony, we find scarce an explorer of note but left 
some record of encountering Cape Cod in his voy- 
age of discovery to the new world. 

We know that Verrazzano, Hudson, Gosnold, 
Champlain, De INIonts, Martin Pring, and Captain 
John Smith, at least, and possibly two Icelandic 
navigators saw Cape Cod before the Pilgrim 
mothers did their first washing at Provincetown. 
The chances are also that there were others, even be- 
fore Columbus came, for when John Cabot disclosed 
to Eiu'ope his tale of the abundance of codfish at 
Newfoundland, in 1497, he mentions the fact that 

50 



EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 51 

the natives called the cod " haccalaos," a name ap- 
plied to that fish by the seamen of the Bay of Biscay 
long before the Genoese navigator sailed on his 
voyage of discovery. 

Cabot's news of the great fish supply across the 
Atlantic gave an impetus to navigation. Extra 
fast days were created to encourage the fisheries by 
increasing the consumption of sea food. No meat 
was allowed any one on fast days, which before the 
Reformation in England made up nearly one-third 
of the year. The voyages of the Cortoreals to the 
northeast coast of America, in 1500 and following 
years, though unsuccessful in the avowed purpose, 
which was to find the mythical northwest passage 
to the Indies, awakened Spain to the commercial 
possibilities of the American fisheries, and brought 
many Spanish sailors to our coast. The chart of 
the Portuguese pilot, Reinal, ascribed to the year 
1503, bears witness to the activities of Portugal at 
these shores. According to local tradition the banks 
of Newfoundland were discovered by the fishermen 
of Normandy and Brittany before 1492, while we 
have authentic record of Breton ships there as early 
as 1504; and, as an enduring memorial of the early 
voyages of the mariners of Dieppe, Honfleur, Saint 
Malo and other French ports, to the grand banks 
and their vicinity, France has left us the name of 



52 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Cape Breton Island. It is fairly certain that Cape 
Breton had this name before the voyages of Cartier 
or Champlain. 

While in the Catholic countries it continued to 
grow apace, the reign of Henry VIII proved dis- 
astrous to the budding fishing industry of England. 
With the excessive ardour of converts, the newly 
made Protestants, anxious to discard every vestige 
of their former faith, banished fish from their tables, 
regarding it with suspicion as a papistic symbol, 
and meat was ostentatiously displayed even on 
Fridays and in Lent. As a result the fishing indus- 
try suffered to so great an extent that while France 
was sending annually some five hundred vessels 
to the banks of Newfoundland, even the home 
fisheries of the English coast were abandoned to 
foreigners. 

In the first year of the reign of Henry's succes- 
sor, 1548, parliament enacted its first measure of 
encouragement to the English fisheries. This im- 
posed heavy fines upon all persons who should eat 
flesh on fish days, and at the same time the New- 
foundland fishery was thrown open without exac- 
tions. Under Elizabeth still more privileges were 
granted the fishermen. They were allowed to ex- 
port their products free of customs, and an em- 
bargo was laid on fishing boats of foreign ports 



EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 53 

anchoring on the coast or interfering in the waters 
claimed by the Enghsh. 

These measures were mainly at the instigation of 
Cecil, the queen's minister, who thus sought to re- 
establish the prestige of the English maritime 
towns, which had fallen into a state of decadence. 
Behind it all lay England's crying need of trained 
mariners to protect her trade, which through negli- 
gence was slipping into foreign hands, and of the 
rudiments of a navy against the augmenting force 
of the French marines. 

Preserved amongst the Cecil manuscripts is a 
long letter from Thomas Barnaby, a merchant, one 
of the foreign agents of Edward VI, in which, writ- 
ing to Lord Burghley, he pictures the relative posi- 
tions of French and English commerce in the year 
1552, and urges upon the secretary of state the im- 
portance of certain measures of preparation to 
" distress the French." 

" There is more Maryners in one Towne there," 
he states, "then is here from the Lands End to S. 
JNIichels Mount. I have sene come out at one tyde 
in Diep five hundred and five Botes and in every 
Bote ten or twelve men. The which was marvel- 
lous to se how they be maintayned by Fyshing and 
what Riches they get out of the Sea and how they 
mayntain their Towns and Ports. As for us let 



N 



54 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

us begin at Sandwich and go to Dover, Hyde, and 
Plastings and to Winchelsea and se how they go 
down for lack of maintenance and in a maner no 
Mariners in them." 

He calls attention to the fact that even English 
coal was transported wholly in French vessels and 
urges that the king take the coals into his own 
hands (as the French king had taken salt) and 
bring them into Kent and there make a staple of 
them ; and that no goods whatsoever should be car- 
ried out of England " but in English bottoms." By 
this means he said " an infinite number of mariners 
would be set to work and it would prove a great 
strength to the Realm." 

When Sir Humphrey Gilbert arrived at New- 
foundland, in 1583, with a charter for colonization, 
and took possession of that country in the name of 
Queen Elizabeth, as an unknown land, he found 
there thirty-six vessels of other nations engaged in 
catching fish; while the year that Sir Francis Drake 
sailed from England on his famous world tour, over 
three hundred ships in the harbours of Europe 
weighed anchor and quietly departed to fish in 
American waters. Before the pioneer voyages of 
Gosnold, Champlain, Smith and the rest had been 
heralded throughout the land or recorded in the 
archives of kings, the hardy fishermen of western 







:«£aj9tiSl^«a»*- 



LHATIIAM BEACH. 

FROM A WOOD BLOCK PRINT BV MARGARET PATTERSON, 




THE BEA( H AT CHATHAM. 

IKOM A VVOUIJ BLOCK PRINT liV MARGARET PATTERSON. 



EXPLORATIOX AND DISCOVERY 55 

Europe had made thousands of trips across the At- 
lantic with little thought of the perils of their voy- 
ages and scarcely a written word to chronicle their 
deeds. 

If navigation stimulated the fisheries, so the 
fisheries in turn stimulated navigation. Nor was 
fish the only commodity sought by the intrepid 
visitors to these shores. Sassafras as often made 
the desired cargo, its roots selling at three shillings 
the pound in England and greatly valued as a medi- 
cine in these early days of American history. Found 
in abundance along the coast from Canada to 
Florida, in the South it takes possession, along with 
the persimmon tree, of abandoned fields. Its uses 
to the English were many. The bark of its twigs 
and the pith are officinal, affording a mucilaginous 
application used by oculists; the oil distilled from 
the root makes a powerful aromatic stimulant much 
used in flavouring and as a basis for the perfume of 
soaps. Sassafras tea was a famous remedy for 
colds, and a decoction of the bark was supposed to 
cure malaria, from which came its early name in 
England — the ague tree. 

It was partly speculation in sassafras that 
brought Bartholomew Gosnold to this coast in 1602. 
He came quietly in the summer of that year, with 
his friend Bartholomew Gilbert, a son of Sir Hum- 



56 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

phrey Gilbert (Raleigh's half-brother) in command 
of the Concord, a vessel chartered by Sir Walter 
Raleigh, but unknown to the latter, to whom Eliza- 
beth had granted the exclusive right of English 
trade with this part of the world. It has been sup- 
posed that they chose this region because it had 
not before been explored by English sailors and 
because they sailed without a licence. Had they 
succeeded in returning undetected to England the 
details of their voyage might never have been 
made public. 

Gosnold's tentative scheme for planting a colony 
was probably a blind to the ulterior motive of the 
voyage, which, from the accounts, seems to have 
been strictly commercial. At all events, being but 
ill equipped both in numbers and in character for 
settlement the whole party returned, heavily laden 
with sassafras, whereupon a sudden drop in the 
price of that commodity aroused Raleigh's suspi- 
cions, and investigation soon brought their cargo to 
light. As some nobles, prominent at the court of 
Elizabeth, were implicated to the extent of having 
taken shares in the ventm-e, Raleigh, in order to 
avert public scandal, allowed the report to go out 
that he had authorized the voyage. 

However contemptible may have been his motive, 
Gosnold emerges from his adventure with the halo 



EXPLORATION AND DISCOVEIIV 57 

of a true discoverer about his head and no questions 
asked. Xot only is he tlie generally accredited dis- 
coverer of Cape Cod — to which he gave its name — 
his was the first attempt by the English to make a 
settlement within the limits of New England. Thus 
much cajiital was made of his venture that "A 
Brief e and true Relation of the Difcouerie of the 
North part of Virginia,'' written by 31. lohn Erere- 
ton, ojie of the voyage, and published Londini by 
Geor. Bifhop, in 1602, was circulated with the ap- 
proval of Sir Walter Raleigh in the hope of inter- 
esting persons of influence to subscribe towards the 
outfit of a second exjDedition to this locality. 

Though it did not achieve its purpose single 
handed, yet we have Captain John Smith's word 
for it that it was Brereton's narrative which stirred 
in him the desire for similar American adventures 
and led him to join the colony which came to James- 
town in 1606. 

Gabriel Archer, " a gentleman in said voyage." 
wrote a second relation, dealing more particularly 
with the temporary settlement at Cuttyhunk; but 
Brereton gives the more thrilling story and the 
more picturesque facts. His was the first English 
book relating to New England. To it was "an- 
nexed a Treatise of M. Edward Hayes, conteining 
important inducements for the planting in thofe 



58 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

parts, and finding a paffage that way to the South 
fea, and China.'' Both accounts of the voyage 
were repubhshed by Samuel Purchas in his " Pil- 
grimes" (London, 1625). 

Brereton's account, addressed to the Honourable 
Sir Walter Raleigh, Kt., Captaine of her Maiesties 
Guards, Lord Warden of the Stanneries, Lieu- 
tenant of Cornwall, and Gouernour of the Isle of 
Jersey, as well as Archer's "relations" fix the date 
of the departure of this expedition from England 
as Friday, the twenty-sixth day of March, 1602. 
Archer is more meticulous as to chronology, but 
both give the four important dates, which, curi- 
ously enough, fell each upon a Friday, so that the 
whole voyage was encompassed within an even 
seventeen weeks. 

They set sail from Falmouth, "being in all two 
& thirtie persons," "whereof eight mariners and 
sailors, twelve purposing upon the discovery to re- 
turn with the ship for England, the rest to remain 
there for population " (I quote from both writers) . 
Their "barke" was the Concord, of Dartmouth, 
and they held a course for the north part of Vir- 
ginia, as the first explorers to our coast called New 
England. In so doing they profited somewhat by 
the recorded experience of Verrazzano, the de- 
scription of whose voyage for the king of France, 



EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 59 

in 1524, had been translated into English by Hak- 
liiyt for his Divers Voyages, which was printed 
in 1582. 

Brereton reads easily that "although by chance 
the wind fououred vs not at first as we wished, but 
inforced vs so farre to the Southward, as we fell 
with S. Marie, one of the islands of the A9ores 
(which was not much out of our way) yet holding 
our course directly from thence, we made our 
iourney shorter (than hitherto accustomed) by the 
better part of a thousand leagues, yet were wee 
longer in our passage than we expected ; which hap- 
pened, for that our barke being Aveake, we M'ere 
loth to presse her with much saile; also, our sailors 
being few, and they none of the best, we bare (ex- 
cept in faire weather) but low saile; besides, our 
going vpon an unknown coast, made vs not oiier- 
bold to stand in with the shore, but in open weather ; 
which caused vs to be certaine daies in sounding, be- 
fore we discouered the coast, the weather being by 
chance, somewhat foggie. But on Friday, the four- 
teenth of May, early in the morning we made the 
land, being full of faire trees, the land somewhat 
low, certeine hummocks or hilles lying into the 
land, the shore ful of white sand, but very stony or 
rocky." 

Authorities differ as to what land this may have 



60 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

been. It has been variously identified as Cape 
Neddock and other parts of the eoast of INIaine; 
WilHamson thinks it coidd not have been south of 
the central Isle of Shoals, while Belknap names it 
the south side of Ca^^e Ann. 

Archer's more detailed description of the ap- 
proach and of the soundings, to which Brereton 
refers but briefly, tells us that on the twenty-third 
of April the ocean appeared yellow, but upon tak- 
ing uj) some of the water in a bucket "it altered 
not either in color or taste from the sea aziu'c." On 
the eighth of INIay "the water changed to a yellow- 
ish green, where at seventy fathoms," they " had 
ground." The ninth they found upon their lead 
"many glittering stones," "which might promise 
some mineral matter at the bottom." This is in- 
teresting as recent analysis of the sand of Cape 
Cod has discovered seventeen different kinds of 
stones — jasper, topaz, tourmaline, and amethyst. 

At this first stopping j)lace on the Xew Eng- 
land coast occurred one of the thrilling adventin*es 
of the trip. Both historians speak of it in pic- 
turesque fashion and create for us a remarkable 
picture. " And standing faire alongst by the shore, 
about twelue of the clock the same day," says 
Brereton, "we came to anker, where sixe Indians, 
in a Baske-shallop with mast and saile, an iron 



EXPLORATIOX AND DISCOVERY 61 

grapple, and a kettle of copper, came boldly aboord 
vs, one of them aj^parelled with a wastcoat and 
breeches of black serdge, made after our sea- 
fashion, hoes and shoes on his feet; all the rest (sau- 
ing one that had a paire of breeches of blue cloth) 
were all naked." Imagine the effect of such a 
bizarre company of savages upon sailors after 
seven weeks' isolation at sea ; upon discoverers who 
had thought to bring novelty and astonishment to 
whatever natives they might encounter upon an un- 
known shore. At first, in the offing, they had 
thought them Christians distressed, but not so^ — 
savages in truth garbed fantastically in some 
Christian's cast-off apparel or taken perhaps from 
some dead man who had infringed their rights — 
savages from all accounts familiar with Christians 
and their ways, and quite the masters of the situa- 
tion, having, according to Archer, more language 
at their command, and being more clever to under- 
stand b}^ signs and some few words than the Eng- 
lish themselves. That they had had intercourse 
with some Basks or Inhabitants of S. lohn de Luz 
the British gathered and so sailed away "leaving 
tliem and their coast." 

The mariner's description of the coming into the 
harbour of Cape Cod and the landing, presumably 
at Provincetown, is grapliic and naive: " But riding 



(>L> A LOI TKUKK IX NKW KXGI.AND 

luHMi'," says Hrrrcton, " in no very oood harbour, 
aiul willmll, (K)ul)tin»>- the weather, ahoiit tliree of 
the eloeke the same day in the al'lernooMe we 
Avei^hed, iSc stjindin»>' Soutlierly off into sea the rest 
of tliat (hiy and the nii»lit following, with a fresh 
oale oi' winde, in the niornint»' we found ourselues 
emhayed n\ ilh a. niii^lilie lieadlaiid; l)ut eoniniinp;" to 
an anker about nine of the eloeke the same day, 
within a lcaL>iK' of the shore. Me hoisted out the one 
halfe o\' our shalloj), and eai)taine BartJioIomcw 
Gosnold and my selfe and three others, went ashore; 
and marehini»" all that afternoon with our muskets 
on our neeks, on the highest hilles whieh we saw 
(the weather very hot ) at length we pereeiucd this 
headland to be ])areell of the niaine, and sundrie 
Islands lying almost round about it: so returnuig 
(toM'ards euening) Ave espied an Indian, a young 
man of ])roi)er stature, aiul of ])leasing eounte- 
nanee: and after some familiaritie with him, we left 
him al llu> sea side, and returned to our ship, where, 
in Hue or sixe houres absenee, we had pestered our 
ship so with Cod iisli, that we threw numbers of 
them ouer-boord againe: and surely I am per- 
suaded that in the monthes o{' Alareh, April, and 
JNIay there is vpon this eoast, better tishing, and in 
as great pUMilie, as in Xricfoiindhnid : ['or seniles 
of Maekerell, herrings. Cod, and other fish, that we 



KXPLOHATION AND DISCOVERY G3 

(liiylysiiw us vvc went :ui(l caiiu' I'rom Ihcsliorc, were 
worulerf'iill; and besides, the })laees where we tooke 
tliese Cods (and ini<^'ht in a few dales haue laden 
our ship) were hut in seuen faddoine water, and 
within lesse than a lea<4ue of the shore; where in 
N('tvf'()ini(]-I(in(l they iish in I'ortie or fiftie I'adonie 
water, and I'arre off. From this ])hu'C we sailerl 
round about this headland, almost all the ])oints of 
the compasse, the shore very bolde: but as no eoast 
is free from dangers, so I am persuaded this is as 
free as any . . .' 

Areher's aeeount tells of the naming- of the Cape: 
"The fifteenth day we had a/j^ain si/^ht of land, 
whieh made ahead, bein/^' as we thought an island, 
by reason of a lar^e sound tliat appeared westward 
between it and the main for eomin^" to the west end 
whereof we did j)ereeive a large o])ening, we called 
it Shoal Hope. Near this eaj)e we eame to anehor 
in fifteen fathoms, where we took great store of 
Cod-fish, for whieh we altered the name, and 
called it Cape Cod." 

The Gosnold-Gilbert expedition, though casual 
in its relation to this ])artieular spot, is of utmost 
im])ortance as the first recorded visit of l^iiiglish- 
men to the coast of New liiigland. Hrereton's re- 
lation made the earliest liUghsh book relating to 
New England; and Gosnold goes down to history 



64 A LOITERER IN NEW EXGLAXD 

as the true discoverer of Cape Cod. The name 
which Gosnold gave it has chiiig to it despite some 
royal efforts to change to something more eupho- 
nious. Cape Cod it remained, though upon Smith's 
famous map of Xew England it figures as Cape 
James; hut, says Thoreau, "even princes have not 
always power to change a name for the worse," 
and, as Cotton JNIather said, Cape Cod is "a name 
which I suppose it will never lose till shoals of cod- 
fish he seen swimming on its highest hills." 

After sailing around the headland — ^ doubling 
the Cape, as it would appear from the description 
— the voyagers at length were come "amongst 
many faire islands," which they had partly dis- 
cerned at their first landing; all lying within a 
league or two of one another, and the outermost 
not more than six or seven leagues from the main. 
These are thought to have been Xantucket and 
INIarthas Vineyard, though an island which they 
named Martlias Vineyard is now known as X'^o 
Man's Land. Upon the island now called b}^ its 
Indian name — Cuttyhunk — but which they, in 
honour of their queen, named Elizabeth — Gos- 
nold resolved to plant his colony. The precise spot 
has been identified, on a small islet in a pond on the 
northwest side of the island, where the adventurers 
spent three weeks and more in building their forti- 



EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 65 

fied house, covered with sedge, as Brereton tells us, 
which grew about this lake in great abundance. 

The name — Elizabeth Islands — is now applied 
to the entire group in Buzzards Bay — thirteen in 
number, large and small, of which Cuttyhunk is 
one; and the township which these constitute bears 
the name of the discoverer — Gosnold. 

Brereton's narration abounds in picturesque de- 
tail and charming anecdote. He was a close ob- 
server and dwells enthusiastically upon the great 
fertility and beauty of the locality, which evidently 
he quitted with regret when the captain aban- 
doned his scheme of colonization and put back to 
England. 

He speaks of the experimental planting of wheat, 
barley, oats, and peas, which in fourteen days were 
sprung up nine inches and more; of the "fat 
and lustie " soil comparable to the best prepared 
gardens of England; of the high timbered oaks, 
" their leaues thrise so broad as ours," of beech, elm, 
holly, and walnut trees in abundance, hazelnut 
trees and cherry trees, the " leafe, barke and big- 
ness not differing from ours in England, but the 
stalk beareth the blossoms or fruit at the end there- 
of, like a cluster of grapes, forty or fifty in a 
bunch; Sassafras trees great plentie all the Island 
ouer, a tree of high price and profit; also diners 



66 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

other fruit trees, some of them with strange barks, 
of an Orange colour, in feehng soft and smoothe 
hke velvet. . . . Also diuers sorts of shellfish, as 
Scallops, Muscles, Cockles, Lobsters, Crabs, 
Oisters, and Wilks, exceeding good and very great. 
But not to cloy you with particular rehearsal 
of such things as God and Nature hath bestowed on 
these places, in comparison whereof the most fertil 
part of all England is (of it selfe) but barren; we 
went in our light-horsman fro this Island to the 
maine, right against this Island some two leagues 
off, where comming ashore, we stood a while like 
men rauished at the beautie and delicacie of this 
sweet soile ; for besides diuers cleere Lakes of fresh 
water (whereof we saw no end) Medowes very 
large and full of greene grasse; euen the most 
wooddy places (I speake onely of such as I saw) doe 
grow so distinct and apart, one tree from another, 
vpon greene grassie ground, somewhat higher than 
the Plaines, as if Nature would shew herselfe aboue 
her power, artificiall." 

Of encounters with the Indians the historian 
makes captivating material. He describes the na- 
tives as " exceeding courteous, gentle of disposition, 
and well conditioned, excelling all others that we 
haue seen ; so for shape of bodie and lonely f auour, 
I thinke they excell all the people of America; of 




IGRATING GEESE. 

'OM AN ETCHING BY FRANK W. BENSON 



EXPLORATION AND DISCOA^ERY 67 

stature mucli lii^her lluiu we; of eoinplexion or 
colour, much like a darke Oliue; their eie-browes 
and haire blacke, which they weare long, tied vp be- 
hind in knots, whereon they pricke feathers of 
fowles, in fashion of a crownet: some of them are 
black thin bearded; they make beards of the haire 
of beasts : and one of them offered a beard of their 
making to one of our sailers, for his that grew on 
his face, which because it was of a red colour, they 
iudged to be none of his owne." 

It is from this account that we have the ancient 
tale of the Indians and the mustard, " whereat they 
made many a sowre face." And Brereton found 
them quick of eye and steadfast in their looks, fear- 
less of harm, meaning none themselves. That he 
was a man to enjoy and appreciate the fine points 
we are certain from the affectionate way in which 
he speaks of one, with w^hom he was "verie famil- 
iar," and from the incident cited to show how clever 
they were at pronouncing English: "for one of 
them one day sitting by me, vpon occasion I spake 
smiling to him these words: How now (sirha) are 
you so saucie with my Tobacco: which \vords (with- 
out any further repetition) he suddenly spake so 
plaine and distinctly, as if he had beene a long 
scholar in the language." 

The women, of whom thev saw but three in all. 



68 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

he describes as well favoured and much delighted 
in the company of the strangers — the men "very 
dutifull" towards them. 

All of this Brereton attributes to the "hole- 
someness and temperature " of the climate, as also 
the complaisance with which these friendly savages 
kept them comj^any, six or seven remaining behind 
when the others had departed after a three days' 
visit from the main land, to help cut and carry the 
sassafras. And of that departiu'e of the main body 
of savages he makes this touching picture: "but 
being in their canowes a little from the shore they 
made huge cries & shouts of ioy vnto vs; and we 
with our trumpet and cornet, and casting vp our 
capjDcs into the aire, made them the best farewell 
we could." 

But when the ship was well laden with sassa- 
fras, cedar, furs, skins, and other commodities, the 
number of those willing to remain behind to colo- 
nize had so dwindled that, says Brereton: "cap- 
taine Gosnold seeing his whole strength to consist 
of but twelue men, and they but meanly prouided, 
determined to returne for England, leaning this 
Island (which he called Elizabeths Island) with 
as many true sorrowfull eies, as were before de- 
sirous to see it. So the 18 of June, being Friday, 
we weighed, and with indifferent f aire winde and 



EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 69 

weather came to anker the 23 of July, being also 
Friday (in all, bare fine weeks) before Eamwuth.'" 

Gosnold left tangible souvenirs of his voyage in 
the names which he gave to his place of settlement, 
to Marthas Vineyard, and to the headland of the 
Cape. The name, Marthas Vineyard, it is true, has 
been shifted to a more important island of the 
group at Buzzards Bay than that referred to by 
the chroniclers of this expedition, while that of 
Elizabeth has been stretched to include the whole 
of the thirteen islands of which the original, now 
Cutty hunk, was but one. 

As for the other name — Cape Cod — the old 
literature on the subject is confusing enough until 
we grasp its original limitations. The early navi- 
gators uniformly aj^plied the name " Cape " to 
that portion of Cape Cod lying north of High 
Head in Truro, and for many years after the dis- 
coveries of Gosnold the name was limited to desig- 
nate that portion only which constitutes its ter- 
minus. The old whalers of the eighteenth century 
knew Provincetown by no other name than " Cape 
Cod Harbour," or by emphasis, simply as " Cape 
Cod." Amongst the veritable old salts this is true 
even down to the present day. 

The laconic name bestowed by the English dis- 
coverer, in 1602, superseded foreign appellations 



70 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAXD 

noted in passing by the various migratory naviga- 
tors of tlie fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, of 
whom few seem to have failed to pass in sight of 
the headland. It figures unmistakably, though 
unnamed, upon Juan de la Cosa's famous map of 
the world, made in 1.500, the first mapa miindi ever 
traced. This interesting document, made by the 
most exj^ert mariner and pilot of his age — he 
made the voyage with Columbus in 1492 — is ex- 
hibited in the Naval Museum of Madrid, and was 
reproduced in facsimile about 1892. 

Ribero's chart of 1529 calls Cape Cod C. de 
^Lrenas, or Sandy Cape, and other mariners of 
about that epoch called it Arecifes, Francescan, 
and C. de Croix. After Hudson the whole Cape 
was called Niew Hollant; on other Dutch charts 
Provincetown Harl)our is called Fuic Bay, on 
another the tip of the Cape is called Stat en 
Hoeck. 

Champlain calls it le cap hlanc, or the white cape, 
from the colour of its sands, his admirable chart 
bearing the legible inscription C. Blaii for the 
extremity of the Cape while Massachusetts Bay 
is designated as Baye Blanche. Champlain de- 
scended the coast of our continent from the north, 
as his exact description makes clearly evident, ajul 
entering Cape Cod Harbour from tlic direction of 



EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 71 

Plymouth had the same impression of advancing 
upon an island that deceived Gosnold and his com- 
pany upon their approach tliree years earlier. 
" Coasting along in a southerly direction," says the 
explorer, " we sailed four or five leagues, and passed 
near a rock on a level with the surface of the water." 
This rock has been identified as one of several to 
be found near the entrance of the Wellfleet Har- 
bour. Champlain describes it as near a river ex- 
tending some distance inland and named it St. 
Suzanne du Cap Blanc. 

" As we continued our course," he goes on to 
say, " we saw some land which seemed to us to be 
islands, but upon coming nearer we j^erceived to 
be terra firma, lying to the nor' nor' west of us, and 
that it was the cape of a large bay, containing more 
than eighteen or nineteen leagues of circuit, into 
which we had run so far {ou nous nous engouf- 
frames tcllement) that we had to wear off on the 
other tack in order to double the cape which we 
had seen, and which we named le cap hlanc, pour 
de que c'estoient sables et dunes, qui paroissent 
ainsi.'" The effect of the high, sandy coast as ap- 
j)roached from the sea, he describes as quite 
remarkable. 

In his Description of New England Captain 
John Smith disposes of Cape Cod, as of no great 



72 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

importance, with a few cursory remarks. He, like 
Chamj)lain and the others, approached it from 
Plymouth, coming down the coast from the north, 
and describes it, as Thoreau says, " like an old trav- 
eller, voyager, and soldier, who had seen too much 
of the world to exaggerate, or even to dwell long 
on a part of it." Cape Cod, says Smith, "is the 
next presents itself, which is only a headland of 
high hills of sand overgrown with shrubby pines, 
hurts, and such trash, but an excellent harbour for 
all weathers. The Cape is made by the main sea 
on the one side, and a great bay on the other, in 
the form of a sickle." 



CHAPTER IV 
THE BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 

Though it dates back so far in our cosmic con- 
sciousness, Cape Cod retains much of its primitive 
mystery. It is little known in the social world ex- 
cept to a discriminating few who make of it a 
kind of cult. It has retained to a remarkable de- 
gree its simplicity and has suffered practically not 
at all from land speculation and "improvement." 
At the same time it has almost constantly been 
before the federal and state governments for one 
cause or another — either to protect its harbour 
from the encroaching sands, to settle the boun- 
daries of its Province Lands, or to plant its " back 
side" with lighthouses and life-saving stations, as 
some protection for the mariners who seek to navi- 
gate its peculiarly hazardous and baffling coast. 

The importance of Cape Cod Harbour, as has 
been eloquently pointed out at various legislative 
assemblies, whose proceedings are preserved in age- 
worn pamphlets in occasional libraries, affects not 
only Provincetown, Truro, and the greater part 
of Wellfleet, which its loss would blot out of exist- 

73 



74 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

ence, since they depend entirely on this harbour, 
but all the towns of the commonwealth interested 
in the mackerel fishery. 

The mackerel fleet makes this harbour its place 
of refuge and shelter, flying in and out with every 
change of weather. Though many a native captain 
and hundreds of the humbler Portuguese inhabit- 
ants " fish out of Provincetown," as the phrase is, 
visiting their weirs near the wide mouth of the har- 
bour in the blank hours of the early morning, and 
bringing in rich hauls of cod, hake, haddock, cusk, 
pollock, and halibut to the local salt packers and 
cold-storage plants, it is the mackerel fleet which 
lends the romantic flavour to the harbour. 

The routine of the ground fishery is sober busi- 
ness, devoid of excitement and charm in compari- 
son with the hazards of the life of the mackerel 
fisher. X^o wind in the willow is more evanescent 
than he. The white sails of the fleet, which hover 
about Cape Cod, seem moved by some mysterious 
law beyond the ken of the casual landsman, ma- 
noeuvring in the ofi^ng, perpetually coming and 
going, "doubling the Cape" always with that air 
of expectancy as outward bound, their sails fill and 
their hulls seem to plough the sands of I^ong Point, 
filing out one after another on doubtful days to try 
their luck, and standing ofl^ within the safety zone 



BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 75 

like children hugging base ; or sailing straight away 
from the harbour urged by some obscure nature 
law, leaving a spiral phosphorescent wake, leading 
to far-off waters beyond sight of the highest hills 
of the Province Lands. Where they go, what ad- 
ventures befall them in the dark nights so favour- 
able to their elusive piu'suit, who shall tell? 

To Thoreau, watching this city of canvas flock- 
ing into Provincetown Harbour on a Saturday 
night, standing by Race Point and Long Point 
with various speed, they seemed to resemble fowls 
coming home to roost. To me their erratic move- 
ments are much more suggestive of kinship with 
the gulls, which lend also vivacity and character to 
this harboin*. These temperamental birds, so emo- 
tionally constructed, come by thousands to pass the 
winter on this coast, profiting largely of its island 
climate, and living upon the entrails of the fish 
thrown off the wharves where the salt packing is 
done. 

On sullen days they squat on the water and bob 
al)out motionless as so many rubber ducks. When 
the tide is high and the ocean tempestuous they fly 
and swoop in great clouds, becoming a wild and 
weird symbol of the elements, their shrill cries wak- 
ing one with the first rays of the brilliant sun. As 
the tide recedes they group themselves to their best 



76 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

advantage upon the shoals, setthng as soon as the 
water becomes shallow enough for them to stand, 
and waiting for the tide to go out and leave them 
high and dry for a lazy sun bath. At intervals 
when the tide is out they walk rapidly about upon 
the greasy marsh, shimmering in the glare of the 
morning sun. 

The mackerel fleet, the gulls, the winds, the tide, 
the sky, the sea, all seem one together — unaccount- 
able, elemental, basic. 

Thoreau, who visited Cape Cod at the time of the 
greatest prosperity of the mackerel fishery, speaks 
of counting " two hundred goodly looking schooners 
at anchor in the harbour," and more yet coming 
round the Cape. A fisherman told him that there 
were fifteen hundred vessels in the fleet, of which 
sometimes as many as three hundred and fifty an- 
chored at one time in Provincetown Harbour. 
This was between 1849 and 1855. These vessels 
came from all the towns of Barnstable County, 
from the Plymouth, Norfolk, and Essex towns — 
such as Marblehead, Gloucester, Beverly, Ipswich, 
and Newburyport. At the present time the 
Gloucester schooners far outnumber the vessels 
from other ports. 

" Cape Cod is the bared and bended arm of 
Massachusetts: the shoulder is at Buzzards Bay; 




MOONLIGHT . 
I FROM AN ETCHING BY FRANK W. BENSON. 



BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 77 

the elbow, or crazy bone, at Cape JVIallebarre; the 
wrist at Truro ; and the sandy fist at Provincetown, 
— behind which the State stands on her guard, with 
her back to the Green Mountains, and her feet 
planted on the floor of the ocean, like an ath- 
lete protecting her Bay, — boxing with northeast 
storms, and, ever and anon, heaving up her Atlan- 
tic adversary from the lap of earth, — ready to 
thrust forth her other fist, which keeps guard the 
while upon her breast at Cape Ann." 

Thoreau puts grandly the obvious comparison 
hi a sentence whose vigorous imagery has not been 
excelled even in his own writings. So pithy a 
statement of her case should never be separated 
from the annals of the Cape, and, though possibly 
the most familiar paragraph of the delicious work 
on Cape Cod, not to quote it — on the score of 
originality — would seem to be an affectation. 

As the "right arm of the commonwealth," in 
more senses of the term than one, many old writers 
have described it — a right arm of defence, not only 
geographically, but by virtue of the race of efficient, 
intelligent, and enterprising seamen bred on its 
barren soil — a right arm of assault upon life and 
property because of the concealed shoals that ren- 
der navigation around this obstruction exceedingly 
hazardous, and Provincetown Harbour one of the 



78 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

most dangerous of approach, as well as one of the 
safest in our whole country. 

Clemens Herschel, writing on behalf of the Cape 
Cod Canal/ describes this isthmus as "in effect 
nothing but a huge mole, or pier, a sort of fence run 
out into the sea that separates the ' Bay Shore ' of 
Massachusetts and the sea-coast of Massachusetts, 
New Hamjjshire, and Maine to the north of that 
from the rest of the United States." The harbour, 
forty miles from the Boston Light, at the mouth 
of Boston Harbour, is the only approachable haven, 
even for small coasters, bound into Boston and 
adjacent points, when caught between the south- 
erly and northerly ends of the Cape. Hidden 
shoals lie all along the route through the sound 
and on the outside of the islands of Nantucket and 
Marthas Vineyard. Shifting sand bars parallel the 
eastern shores of Cape Cod, which present for the 
fifty miles from Monomoy Point, at Chatham, to 
Wood End, at Provincetown, an unbroken line of 
sandy beaches. The rigor of the climate, the dan- 
ger of collisions in the narrow and crooked channels 
between the shoals in fogs, as well as the fact that 
the sailing directions make less than a right angle 
with one another, have earned for the famous back 
side of the Cape an unenviable record for loss of 

^ Franklin Institute Journal, May, 1878, 



BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 79 

life and property, and the apt title of the Ocean 
Graveyard. The bones of once staunch crafts 
litter its beaches; the bones of thousands of un- 
named dead lie whitening upon those sunken plains 
beneath placid seeming waters, where men perished 
helpless witliin sight and sound of the desolate 
shore; while the unmarked graves in the village 
burying grounds of the Cape bear mute testimony 
to the wanton waste of life that preceded the com- 
paratively recent work of organized rescue. 

Along this dangerous coast a paternal govern- 
ment has planted at inten^als lighthouses as bea- 
cons to warn the mariner of his peril, and still more 
recently rescue stations for the relief of such ves- 
sels as founder upon its shoals, or are driven upon 
the sands bj^ adverse winds and currents. This 
once completely desolate coast is now patrolled 
every night, regardless of wind or weather, and 
during thick weather by day, by an endless chain 
of surfmen, who meet and report at the half-way 
houses between the stations, thus keeping up an un- 
broken line of communication throughout its ex- 
tent, their work aided by all the scientific equip- 
ment of the age. 

Xo night so black, no storm so violent but the 
surfman sentry is on guard, his pockets filled with 
the code signals, by means of which he may speak 



80 A LOITERER IN XEW ENGLAND 

to a distressed vessel and summon instant help in 
case of need. On moonlight nights, on starlit 
nights, on nights as black as ink; through impene- 
trable fog, through rain, shine, sleet, or hail; 
through blinding sand storms and smothering 
snows; against the blasts of winter gales, through 
driving tempest, the way imperilled by flooded 
beaches, storm tides, or quicksands, driving him to 
the crests of the dunes, the heroic surfman walker 
pursues his devoted path along the exposed 
beaches on the lookout for distressed vessels. 

The life-saving service on Cape Cod dates back 
less than fifty years — the first lighthouse was 
erected but one hundred and twenty years ago, and 
only in the suite of most appalling disasters. In 
view of the present efficiency of the service, the 
apparent reluctance of congress to make provision 
for it is almost incredible. While there is no official 
record of the disasters on this coast previous to 
the establishment of the sers^ice in 1872, the hor- 
rors of many have come down by tradition or been 
preserved in the annals of the Cape towns. 

Governor Bradford himself is the historian of 
the first recorded wreck upon these shores, relating 
in his history of the Plymouth Colony the fate 
of the ship Sparrowhawk, a famous historic hulk 
carrying colonists bound for Virginia, and stranded 



BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 81 

on the shoals at Orleans in 1626. Old Ship Har- 
bour received its name in commemoration of this 
wreck, which lay buried in the sands for more than 
two centiu'ies, an^ was exhumed by a memorable 
storm in 1863, when the washing away of the shore 
line disclosed the skeleton. The ribs and bottom 
timbers form an important exhibit at Pilgrim Hall, 
in Plymouth. The vessel was a contemporary of 
the May Flovcer and its survivors took refuge at 
PhTiiouth, so that its remains are well placed 
amongst the historic collections of that city. 

The famous loss of the English frigate Som- 
erset, in November, 1778, when trying to make 
Provincetown Harbour, pursued by some French 
men-of-war, was one disaster that was thoroughly 
relished by the inhabitants of the Cape. This ill- 
starred vessel was present at the bombardment of 
Charlesto\\Ti, having covered the landing of the 
British troops at the Battle of Bunker Hill. She 
was commanded by the notorious Captain Bellamy, 
who had made her a veritable pest at Provincetown, 
running frequently into the harbour and levying 
upon the people of that tiny village for supplies, 
and sending his chaplain ashore on Sundays to 
preach, offering sermons as ironic payment for the 
stores appropriated. 

The good news of the plight of this vessel was 



82 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

soon circulated in Provincetown and the citizens 
with secret joy in their hearts watched, from High 
Pole Hill, the destruction of their old enemy. She 
struck the Peaked Hill Bars during a northeast 
gale while trying to round the Cape. Being unahle 
to weather Race Point, in tacking she struck the 
outer bar with terrific force and instantly the seas 
began to pound her to pieces. There w^as no need 
for the French vessel to pursue her advantage — 
seeing her enemy vanquished, she fired a few shots 
and then stood out to sea for safety. The dis- 
tressed vessel launched a few boats but these were 
speedily dashed to pieces and those in them 
drowned. JNIeanwhile the ship having been light- 
ened in every j^ossible manner, was driven by the 
force of the wind at high tide over the bar and up 
the shore, where the few siu'vivors that had stuck 
to the strained and leaking hulk were taken prisoner 
by Captain Enoch Hallett and a detaclmient of 
militia from Yarmouth. There was a triumphant 
march to Barnstable and later to Boston with the 
captives, and much jubilation over the wreck. 

Captain Abijah Doane, of Wellfleet, was left 
in charge of the wreck, which was speedily fallen 
upon, however, by the outraged citizens of Prov- 
incetown, who carried off many trophies. Amongst 
other things a few guns, that had been thrown 




I THE BACK SIDE : DUNES OF THE OUTER RIDGE. 



THE SAND DUNES OUT BACK , 
DECORATIVE LANDSCAPE BY 
ROSS MOFFETT : "tHE MAN 
IN THE CONNING TOWER HAD 
THIS PROSPECT DAY AND NIGHT 
UNDER HIS EYE, MUCH OF IT 
WITHIN REACH OF HIS AMPLI- 
FIED VOICE." 




BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 83 

overboard to lighten the ship, were landed and af- 
terwards used in some of the fortifications along the 
coast. Fire was set to the hull, but only partially 
consumed the deck and upper works. Then the 
shifting sands rolled over her and the vessel was 
soon buried from sight. 

The bones of the Somerset lay deep in the sands 
for nearly a century, when, during the winter of 
1885-1886, a succession of northeast gales in combi- 
nation with a very high course of tides wore out 
the beach at the point where she was imbedded and 
exposed the charred timbers and a considerable por- 
tion of the deck of the vessel. It was freely visited 
and plundered by relic hunters, and to this day 
mementoes made of the wood of the frigate Somer- 
set may be purchased in Provincetown. Unfor- 
tunately, however, the work of demolition could 
only be carried on at low tide, and before it was 
well under way the beach began to " make out " 
again and soon obliterated all trace of the historic 
hulk. 

From the year 1843 to 1859, a period of seven- 
teen years, eight hundred and twenty-seven wrecks 
were reported off Cape Cod. One gale wrecked 
eighteen vessels between Race Point and the ex- 
tremity of the Cape. The year 1853 was mem- 
orable in the annals of the peninsula, twenty-three 



84 A LOITEKER IX NEW ENGLAND 

appalling disasters having occurred along its shore 
with often a total destruction of life, ship, and 
cargo — the survivors of the wrecks often perishing 
from exposure on the desolate uplands and beaches. 
One particularly sad affair was the wa*eck of the 
Clara Bdlc, a coal schooner, stranded on the bars 
off High Head Station, on the night of March 6, 
187'2, during a blizzard. A description of this 
wreck, published in J. W. Dalton's little monument 
to bravery, entitled " The Life Savers of Cape 
Cod," gwes the outline of the tragedy: "Captain 
Amesbury and crew of six men attempted to reach 
the shore in their boat. The craft had gone but 
a few yards when she was overturned, throwing 
the men into the sea. John Silva was the only 
member of the crew that reached the shore. He 
found himself alone on a frozen beach with the 
mercury below zero. He wandered about during 
the night trying to find some place of shelter, and 
was found the next morning h\ a farmer standing 
dazed, barefooted, and helpless in the highway 
three miles from the scene of the wreck. His 
feet and hands were frozen, and it was a long 
time before he recovered from the effects. The 
schooner w^as driven high and dry on the beach, 
and when boarded the next day a wami fire was 
found in the cabin. . . . The haste of the crew to 



BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 85 

leave the vessel," sums up the writer, "cost them 
their lives." 

The work of the professional life savers is so 
romantic and heroic, and they perform their duties 
with such simple courage and bravery that one is 
apt to invest the character with too ponderous a 
halo. As a matter of fact the savers of Cape Cod, 
esiDccially the old ones, have very human qualities 
in combination with their nobler characteristics. 
When not engaged in their official occupation they 
make delightful conversation for the entertainment 
of the casual visitors to the back side. We thought 
them inured perhaps to the business of dragging 
the dead and the living out of the sea, and as little 
affected by one as by the other, but an old chief 
said to me once with a grim dash of humour: "I 
hope you won't think I 'm kinda weak and woman- 
ish .. . but when I feel a corpse sloshin' up against 
me out thar in the water in the night time . . . 
makes me feel kinda shivery." 

There grew to be we thought a sort of rivalry 
between this captain and the head of the next sta- 
tion, about five miles farther down the Cape, and 
once when that more remote hero brought in a ves- 
sel, saving all souls and the cargo, one of the per- 
manent summer people with whom our friend was 
on confidential terms, twitted him with raillery 



86 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

upon having allowed " Captain Davis " to get 
ahead of him. " I see that you let Caj^tain Davis 
take that last wreck," said she, smiling; "how was 
that. Captain?" Our friend scowled heavily. 
"Wall," said he impressively, "it's abaout tmie. 
Last winter I had 'leven wrecks and twenty-seven 
God damned corpses" — bringing out the oaths 
deliberately — "and Captain Davis, he ain't had 
but three wrecks, and nary a corpse." 

I found amongst the few stray pamphlets and 
documents concerning the Cape a curious fore- 
runner of the work of the Coast Guard Service, 
now so effectively systematized. This document 
is entitled " A Description of the Eastern Coast of 
the County of Barnstable," and includes the whole 
coast from " Cape Cod, or Race Point " to " Cape 
INIalebarre or the Sandy Point of Chatham." Is- 
sued in an edition of two thousand copies, in Octo- 
ber, 1802, distributed to the sailing vessels that fre- 
quented this coast, it points out the spots upon 
which the trustees of the Humane Society had 
erected huts, and other places where distressed sea- 
men might look for shelter. 

The INIassachusetts Humane Society was formed 
in 1786 and offered the first organized relief for 
shipwrecked mariners in tlie United States, as well 
as upon Cape Cod. In a sense it may be considered 



BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 87 

the parent of the United States Life-Saving Serv- 
ice, and it also antedated by a number of years any 
similar movement for the protection of seafarers in 
France and England. While its first work was 
the building of huts to shelter such survivors of 
wrecks that might reach the shore, in the course 
of a few decades it had extended its usefulness by 
the erection, at the expense of its members, of 
eighteen stations on the ]\Iassachusetts coast, with 
boats and mortars for throwing life lines to stranded 
vessels. The first appropriation made by congress 
for the assistance of shipwrecked seamen was on 
JMarch 3, 1847. 

The huts erected by the Humane Society had no 
connection with the government, and in those days 
represented the only relief offered distressed sailors 
along this coast. They were entirely the altruistic 
enterprise of the benevolent organization, built 
from its funds, and supported by its members, who 
pledged themselves to inspect the huts at inter- 
vals and to keep them supplied with the most ele- 
mentary of creature comforts. 

The ancient description pictures these huts as 
structures eight feet long, eight feet wide, and 
seven feet high, standing upon piles, and fitted with 
a sliding door to the south, a sliding shutter to the 
west, and a pole rising fifteen feet above the top 



88 A LOITKKKK IX XKW EXGLAXD 

o( the buiklino-. on tlio oast. Within tiioy wore 
tittod with straw or hay. and oacii was " further ae- 
conmiodated with a beneh."* 

To one who has walked the sands o( the baek 
side for hours without meeting a human ereature. 
even in these days of ettieient eoast patrok it is easy 
to pieture the grim desolation and hopek^ssness ot' 
the eastaway upon this part o{ the eoast. It is 
easy to understand how through neghgenee o{ tliis 
self-appointed eustodian oi the stranded mariner, 
one of these humane huts failed of its mission at the 
very time and plaee where its hospitality was most 
urgently ealled upon. 

"The Humane Soeiety " — the pamphlet thus 
relates its terrible story with the tragie simplieity 
o\' true art — '"several years ago erected a hut at 
the head of Stouts Creek." in Truro, but "' it was 
built in an improper manner, having a chimney in 
it ; and was placed on a spot where no beach grass 
grew. The strong winds blew the sand from its 
foundation, and the weight of the chimney brought 
it to the ground: so that in January o{ the present 
year \^180'J'i it was entirely demolished. This event 
toe>k place about six weeks before the Brutu.^i was 
east away. If it had remained, it is probable that 
the whole o{ the unfortunate crew of that ship 
would have been saved, as they gained shore a 



BACK SIDK OF TIIK CAPE 89 

few rods only froiii tlic sj)()l where the hut liad 
stood." 

If the minute and earel'ul direetions intended to 
<>iiide the survivors of the many wreeks of this fate- 
ful eoast seem too eomj)heated — as any attempt 
to direet by words a stranger tln'()Ui>h the woods, 
filled with ponds and entanL>lini>' swamps, that lie 
between the outside and the bay shores are bound 
to be — there is no questioning the sincerity of the 
author nor the thoroughness of this little manual. 
Whoever Avrote it knew the coast and the (bmes, as 
the French say, like his ])ocket, and the descriptions 
of the lonely desert, out there behind the snug vil- 
lage of Provincetown, has a certain sad beauty, as 
if the writer knew, even while he makes the routes 
through the " hollows," between the hills, as clear 
as written language can present them, that there 
is little hope that his words will reach the desper- 
ate situati(Mis which they foresee. 

" The curvature of the shore on the west side of 
Provincetown and south of Race Point," he begins, 
" is called Herring Cove. It is three miles in length 
and vessels may ride safely in four or five fathoms 
of water when the wind is from the northeast to 
southeast." On Race Point, where is now one of 
the most important life-saving stations of the 
coast, stood, in those days, about a dozen fishing 



90 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

huts, containing fireplaces and other conveniences. 
We have at present a well built state road across 
the dunes and cranberry bogs that lie between this 
point and Provincetown, a distance of three good 
miles. This road is of recent construction and the 
passage in the old da^^s our friend describes as over 
a sandy beach, without grass or any other "vege- 
table," to the woods, through which there was a 
winding road to the town. 

Floundering about one day through the heavy 
sands ujDon the ridge that begins not far from this 
place, in search of the route back to town, a voice 
suddenly reached me with startling distinctness. 
" Are you looking for the road? " it asked, and pro- 
ceeded to direct my course. I found that it be- 
longed to the solitary sentinel in the lookout towxr 
of the Race Point Coast Guard Station. From his 
conning tower his glass swept the horizon, and he 
had doubtless long had his eye on me, advancing 
slowly up the hard sands smoothed by the receding 
tide, and identified the wanderer as of the genus 
"summer folks" (though it was late in the au- 
tumn), that pernicious pest who, knowing little of 
the menace of the back side, are continually, during 
the season, tempting Providence by bathing ad- 
venturously in its treacherous undertow, or losing 
their way in the trackless desert, turning up at the 





THE Ulysses, Brutus, and Volusia sailing from salem, 

FEBRUARY 21, l802. ALL THREE WRECKED OFF CAPE COD 
ON THIS DATE. 

FROM A WATER COLOUR IN THE MARINE ROOM, 
PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. 



WREl KEII ().\ THE KE.\CH AT 
C.\PE COD. 




BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 91 

stations for aid. '"Sef we hadn't 'nuf savin' to 
do, 'thout savin' summa folks," the captain at the 
Peaked Hill Bar Station remarked sententiously 
one hot day when he had been particularly tried. 

One could thoroughly grasp his point of view, 
and there was something curiously typical in the 
reserve of liis attitude. He never forbade bathing, 
though I suppose he might have done so on bad 
days, but seemed to understand his office as simply 
that of watcher, not entitled to intrude until help 
was needed, when he was there in the fullest ac- 
ceptance of the word. 

There was a story of occasional discipline, told by 
one of the old chiefs in his simple dramatic way, in 
laconic sentences between puffings at his pipe. It 
concerned a " young fellow, all dressed up in whoite 
flan-nel," who, springing lightly past the station 
one summer day on his blithe way to the surf, 
paused expansively a moment before the group of 
life savers, perched on tilted chair rungs, gazing 
seaward. " ' Sech a hawt day, sh'd think you fel- 
lows 'd be in swimmin',' " he says. The economy 
of the captain's words was covered by the extreme 
eloquence of his pauses. "'Would ye so?' I says. 
He went on down to the water," the captain re- 
lated, holding his pipe just far enough from his 
lips to allow his words to escape, " 'n took his 



92 A ix)itj:kj:k ix new exglaxu 

clothes off, 'ji he went in. I sent a couple o' my 
men down to watch him. He swum round all right 
for quite a spell, and come out right enough, 'thout 
needin' any help — ^they want no undertow to speak 
ahaout that day . . . . By an' by he comes steppin' 
back past the stashun, rigged out again in his 
whoite flan-nels wavin' his tow-el in the air to git 
it dry. . . . ' Ben takin' a dip,' he says. ' I seen 
ye dip-pin,' I says. 

" Next day 'long abaout high tide I see my young 
man comin' b}^ again, headin' towards the water. 
'T was a very diff' runt sort of day ; wind bed 
changed some, tide was goin' aout, and the under- . 
tow w^as runnin' considerable. ... I says to the ' 
men, I says, ' Jes' leave him alone down there for 
a spell. I 'm goin' to teach that young fellow a 
les-sun,' I says. 

" He left his clothes on the beach, and he went I 
in the water. . . ." Here the pause was prolonged 
ominously. " The waves sloshed him round suthin' 
awful, we watchin' him. . . . He was a fair swim- 
mer, and he held his own for quite a spell, but try 
as he would he couldn't make the shore, the beach 
is cut out kinda steep-like there. . . . When he 
was pretty nigh wore out, I sent one the men aout 
with the dory to fetch him in. . . ." The captain 
leaned over the rail of his porch, and knocking the 



BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 93 

aslics out ol' liis [)il)e made his point with no change 
of eountenanee: ''1 ain't seen him dip- pin' sence." 

When the man in the conning tower spoke to 
me through his megaphone I had been tramping 
from far down the coast below the Peaked Hill Bar 
Station, far from the sight and sound of human 
habitation, w^atching the serene prospect of the 
manoeuvring mackerel fleet, hull down in the hori- 
zon. The beach was strewn with driftwood, wreck- 
age, and thousands of bottles of every kind and 
shaj)e, many of them beautifully iridescent, like 
Egyptian glass, and still more were milky, opales- 
cent, or simply ground white by the action of the 
waves rolling them upon the sand. 

The man in the conning tower had all this pros- 
pect day and night under his eye, much of it within 
reach of his amplified voice. I thought of the plight 
of stranded mariners of a century ago who had few 
friendly lights to guide them, no watch tower over- 
looking their distress, its searchlight promising suc- 
cor, no voice overtopping the fury of the storm — 
only the whisper of this quiet seaman's manual, re- 
minding, admonishing, encouraging, fervently di- 
recting their frenzied footsteps on an unknown and 
perilous shore. 

Not far from Race Point commences the ridge, 
running parallel to the beach, and constituting 



94 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Thoreau's so-called upper road, both the bank and 
the beach extending twenty-eight miles southeast 
from Race Point to Nauset Harbour. " This 
ridge," says the whisper, " is well covered with 
beach grass and appears to owe its existence to that 
vegetable. Beach grass during the spring and 
summer grows about two and a half feet. If sur- 
rounded by the naked beach, the storms of autumn 
and winter heap up the sand on all sides, and cause 
it to rise nearly to the top of the j^lant. In the en- 
suing spring the grass sprouts anew, is again cov- 
ered with sand in winter, and thus a hill or ridge 
continues to ascend as long as there is sufficient 
base to support it or until the circimiscribing sand, 
being also covered with beach grass, will no longer 
yield to the force of the winds." 

There were two huts erected by the trustees of 
the Humane Society; one on the ridge half way 
between Race Point and the head of an extin- 
guished stream known as Stouts Creek, a small 
branch of East Harbour, in Truro, and another 
at the head of the creek. These with the fisher- 
men's huts, before mentioned, were the sole relief 
afforded mariners along what was known to be the 
part of the coast most exposed to wrecks. "A 
northeast storm, the most violent and fatal to sea- 
men, as it is frequently accompanied by snow, blows 



BACK SIDE OF THE CAPE 95 

directly on the land: a strong current sets along 
the shore : add to which that ships during the opera- 
tion of such a storm endeavour to work to the 
northward that they may get into the bay. Shoidd 
they be unable to weather Race Point the wind 
drives them on the shore, and a shipwreck is inevi- 
table. Accordingly the strand is everywhere cov- 
ered with the fragments of vessels. Huts therefore 
placed within a mile of each other have been 
thought necessary by inany judicious jjersons." 

I find in the Massacliusetts 3Iagazine for the 
year 1791 an urgent appeal for a lighthouse on 
" a high cliff on the east or backside of Truro next 
the sea, a certain part of which is known by the 
name of Clay Pounds." " Many vessels coming in 
from the sea, even when the weather is not very dis- 
tressing," says the anonymous author, " are cast 
away upon the cape in the night merely for want of 
this light." It must have been built soon after 
(in 1798), for the small voice goes on: "On the 
first elevated spot (above the salt marsh at Truro) 
— the Clay Pounds — stands the Light House. 
The shore here turns to the south and the High 
I^and extends to the Table Land of Eastham. 
This high land approaches the ocean with steep and 
lofty banks, which it is extremely difficult to climb, 
especially in a storm. In violent tempests during 



96 A LOITERER IX XEW ENGLAND 

very high tides, the sea breaks against the foot of 
them rendering it then unsafe to walk on the 
strand which hes between them and the ocean. 
Should the seaman succeed in his attempt to as- 
cend them he must forbear to penetrate into the 
country as houses are generally so remote that they 
would escape his research during the night : he must 
pass on to the rallies by which the banks are inter- 
sected. These rallies which the inhabitants call 
' Hollows,' run at right angles to the shore and in 
the middle or lowest part of them a road leads from 
the dwelling houses into the sea." To-dar such 
" roads " are marked by the broad tires of the Coast 
Guard wagons, a heary wind storm or drenching 
rain obliterates the track — in those days it must 
have been more a matter of instinct than eyesight 
to find or follow them. 

"The whole of the coast from Cape Cod (Pror- 
incetown) to Cape ]Malebarre (^Nlonomoy Point) 
is sandy and free from rocks/' continues the an- 
cient o'uide. " Along the shore at the distance of 
half a mile is a bar; which is called the Outer Bar, 
because there are smaller bars within it, perpetu- 
ally rarying. This outer bar is separated into 
many parts by guzzles or small channels. It ex- 
tends to Chatham : and as it ]^roceeds southward, 
gradually ap})roaches the shore and grows more 



BACK SIDE OF TIIK CAPK 1)7 

shallow. Its general (lc])th at \\'\}y]\ water is h\() 
fathoms, and three fathoms over the guzzles; and 
its least distance from the shore is about a fui'long. 
Off the mouth of Chatham Harbour there are bars 
which reach three-quarters of a mile; and off the 
entrance of Nauset Harbour the bars extend a 
half of a mile. Large, heavy ships strike on the 
outer bar, even at high water, and their fragments 
only reach the shore. But smaller vessels pass over 
it at full sea and when they touch at low water they 
beat over it, as the tide rises, and soon come to the 
land. If a vessel be cast away at low water, it 
ought to be left with as much expedition as pos- 
sible ; because the fury of the waves is then checked, 
in some measure, by the bar; and because the vessel 
is generally broken to pieces with the rising flood. 
But seamen, shipwrecked at full sea ought to re- 
main on board till near low water; for the vessel 
does not then break to pieces; and by attempting 
to reach land before the tide ebbs away they are in 
great danger of being drowned. On this subject 
there is one opinion only among judicious mariners. 
It may be necessary, however, to remind them of a 
truth of which they have full conviction but whicli, 
amidst the agitation and terror of a storm, they 
too frequently forget." 



CHAPTER V 

SHIFTING SAXDS: THE SPIT AXD 
THE HOOK 

Cape Cod is the most peculiar feature of the 
Atlantic coast line. Not hecause of its crescentic 
form, noted by every navigator Avho brought news 
of the peninsula to his native land, which though 
curious enough is by no means unique, except for 
the great size of the hook, many sunilarly formed 
sand spits repeat on a small scale its general out- 
line: but in the bold manner in which this salient 
projects from the shore, in its strong topographical 
relief, and in the characteristics of its coast line, it 
finds no parallel on this continent, perhaps, indeed, 
in the whole world. 

Though the sand in some places is three hundred 
feet deep, there is believed to be a backbone of 
diluvial rock. It used, however, conlidently to be 
asserted that Cape Cod had no backbone, and this 
was currently believed imtil quite recent times, 
when its base, a solid mass of granite, was encoun- 
tered in dredging for the canal at Buzzards Bay, 
and proved a serious impedunent to progress. 

98 



SHIFTIXG SAXDS 99 

Owing to the very considerable clianges that 
shifting sands have made in the contour of the 
Cajie, there has come to be a general opinion, held 
even by well-informed citizens of the peninsula, 
that Cape Cod is in a process of rapid destruction 
— that it will, in the course of some thousands of 
years, be literally washed away. But scientists as- 
sure us that so far is this from truth that the con- 
verse is nearer actual fact.^ 

Yet the sands do move, " cutting out " in one 
place and "making up " in anotlier; and this move- 
ment forms one of the compelling mysteries of the 
Cape, and its chief fascination. 

Geologists tell us of the extremity of the Cape, 
that all that section of land to the north of High 
Head, in Truro, has arisen from the sea! Its ro- 
mantic construction occupied a^ons of time, fol- 
lo^\ing immediately upon the heels of the last gla- 
cial epoch. We know that all the marshes, bar- 
riers, beaches, spits, and hooks are of post-glacial 
formation; that they have attached themselves to 
the terra fir in a of the promontory since, "by a final 
step of subsidence, it established its present rela- 
tions of land and sea." (I quote the government 
document.) And in the "hook," which constitutes 
the whole area of the village of Provincetown, we 

* Eighteenth Annual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey, 1898. 



100 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

have what geologists consider one of the finest ex- 
isting examples of such forms. 

We are then to picture to ourselves Cape Cod 
as finding its terminus, in remoter ages, in the high- 
lands of Truro, which, in those days, are computed 
to have extended somewhat farther to the north 
and east than is now the case. Immediately upon 
its release from its icy chrysalis, the waves of the 
ocean set about the demolition of what had been 
so laboriously accomplished, and attacking the bold 
face of the projection, with rhythmic constancy, 
gradually wore down its tip end, just as to-day, by 
the same means, the eastern facade of the Cape, 
from Truro to Eastham is suffering erosion. 
Sometimes this work of ceaseless destruction would 
be hastened by furious gales, and great chunks of 
earth be torn away by the lash of the breakers upon 
the defenceless coast. 

But as the waves tore down, the beneficent cur- 
rents, catching the debris of the destroyer and 
carrying the accumulations to the end of the land, 
began the construction of that spit, which, growing 
northward, protected the headland from further en- 
croachments of the sea, and formed the base of 
operations upon which have been developed the 
whole of the desert beyond, the terminating village 
of Provincetown, and the tapering tips at Wood 
End and Long Point. 




A SAND DUNE ENCROACHING UPON AN OASIS. 




.ratei^- .'/ /: ' ' 



I 



^OLD FOREST BEDS. LONG SINCE BURIED IN THE SANDS, 
.HOP OUT OCCASIONALLY TO PROVE THAT A CONSIDERABLE 
KkEA, NOW ARID, WAS ONCE PRIMEVAL FOREST." 



^«|M^ 




SHIFTING SANDS 101 

As the sandy extension pushed northward into 
the Atlantic, there was, at first, no distinct hook in 
the end of the spit, whose form is supposed to have 
resembled that of Monomoy Island, at the elbow 
of the Cape. The growth and development of 
these sandy formations appears, indeed, to be in 
two directions. The erosion of the sea on the east- 
ern face of the peninsula, has provided not only 
the sand which has gone to construct the spit and 
later the hook of Provincetown, but also that which, 
moving southward, has built the large and beauti- 
ful line of barrier beaches that extends from below 
Orleans to the end of Monomoy Island. Though 
a shallow water way separates Monomoy, at pres- 
ent, from the mainland of the Cape, its structure 
constitutes a spit of the same general character, but 
in an earlier stage of the development than that at 
Provincetown. 

The sandy point of Chatham, known on the old 
charts as Cape Mallebarre — Cajj Baturier, on 
Champlain's map — but to the sailors of our gen- 
eration as Monomoy Point, extends ten miles or 
more into the sea, towards Nantucket, and is con- 
tinually gaining south. So rapidly is Monomoy 
"making out" towards Nantucket, that geologists 
predict the reunion of that island with the main- 
land of the state, to which it belongs by all the 



102 A LOITEliEU IX NEW EXGLAND 

sacred rights of consanguinity, as the next inii)()r- 
tant change in the outhne of the Atlantic seaboard. 

The present name of INIonomoy is a derivative 
from the ancient Indian name for Chatham — Mon- 
iimoik. Momimoilx was at the time of its discovery 
the residence of a sachem, and the great heap of 
shells found here testify to the existence of a large 
aboriginal population at this place. 

Harwich marks the bend of the railroad, a 
branch line running out to Chatham, and above the 
old boundaries of these two townships lies the table- 
land of Eastham, which extends across the Cape, 
here not more than two miles wide. The character 
of the coast here is particularly shredded, having 
been much eaten into by the tides. In many places 
where there are coves and creeks, the distance from 
the Atlantic to the bay shore is so narrow that the 
tide has been known to flow across, and a channel 
between Eastham and Orleans was once forced by 
the sea. 

It was predicted more than a century ago that 
in the course of years the Cape would be rent asun- 
der at this point by the violence of the winds and 
seas ; for this being a narrow part of the Cape, and 
near the bend, the westerly winds drive across with 
great violence, being accumulated at this point as 
they blow down the bay. In consequence of the 



SHllTIXG SANDS 103 

complete destruction of the woodland, writes an 
observer of the eighteenth centiny, " the winds on 
the inner or westerly side have torn away all vege- 
tation, and ploughed up hundreds of acres in many 
places to a depth of six feet." 

Opposite this place, on the east side of the Cape, 
was a small tract of fertile land, remarkable once 
for producing grass and wheat, from which East- 
ham came to be called " the granary of the Cape." 
It is also pointed out as the one-time residence of 
Thomas Prence, governor of the old colony of 
Plymouth, he who, in the name of the colony, pur- 
chased the first parcel of Cape land from the 
Indians. 

'\^^hile at present the struggle between accumu- 
lating sands and currents is most active at the 
elbow of the Cape, in the beginning the chief con- 
cern of the elements seems to have been the achieve- 
ment of that vast desert area which attaches to the 
Clay Pounds of Truro. 

The imagined process of the growth of the Prov- 
incetown hook is chiefly by successive beaches, 
built by the tides and waves and ciu'rents, the 
sands partly dragged from the coast line of Truro 
and Wellfleet, and partly cast from the sea bot- 
tom. As one beach was finished another was 
formed in front of its predecessor; and as one by 



104 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

one the dunes of the old beaches were protected by 
the new ones forming to the north, they gradually 
clothed themselves with the exquisite vegetation 
still characteristic of the back country of the Prov- 
ince Lands, while the depressions between the 
ridges, each of which was once a race run, were 
filled, just as Race Run, that sluggish tidal stream 
which empties into Herring Cove, near Race Point, 
is filling in to-day. Geologists conjecture that the 
famous Peaked Hill Bar, the terror of all seamen 
of this coast, is a new beach in process of formation. 
Along with the carriage of sand by the sea has 
gone a considerable movement of materials by the 
wind, to whose elemental force is due the construc- 
tion of the dunes, whose marvellous beauty is little 
known to the casual visitor to Provincetown. Phi- 
losophers tell us that movement is life, and truly 
the scene before us in this extraordinary back coun- 
try knows no rest. Where the sea completes its 
travail the wind takes it up, rolling the great outer 
sand ridge, which extends the whole length of the 
township, parallel with the sea beach, inland 
towards the harbour, like a giant wave, covering 
lake and forest in its progress. By the planting 
of beach grass, shrubs, and such few trees as find 
congenial rooting in this light soil, the government 
has succeeded in arresting partially the forces of 



SHIFTING SANDS 105 

nature, but the seaward part of the area is in con- 
stant motion. 

The speed of this movement, says the report of 
the United States Geological Survey for 1898, may 
be judged by the fact that in April, 1897, a mass 
of snow twenty feet in length and two feet in thick- 
ness was revealed where it had been covered with 
sand during the preceding winter to a depth of 
twelve feet, the mass having been subsequently cut 
through by a change in the scouring movement of 
the wind. The rate of progression has been esti- 
mated to be about ten feet annually, and the north 
wind is said to carry more than one million tons 
of sand yearly a distance of half a mile, from the 
northern foot to the rear of the ridge. 

As the sand moves inland, as may be seen to-day, 
it exposes the stumps of a long-covered forest, and 
reveals, as shown by stratas of loam, the undulat- 
ing surface over which it has passed. There are 
evidences of several surfaces once covered with 
verdure thus disclosed. 

The wild exotic beauty of the scene has been 
not inaptly compared to that of the Alexandrian 
deserts; enthusiasts even go so far as to say that 
the prospect on approaching Race Point from the 
Atlantic is unequalled by the Egyptian shores. 
The wind whirls the dunes into fantastic shapes, 



lOH A T.OrrERKK I\ \KW P:XGI.A\D 

and between their irregularities have been formed 
numerous oases similar to those of the great deserts. 
Springs are found below the surface of the sands 
everywhere, and many of the hollows contain fresh 
water ponds, bordered by a choice growth of tu- 
pelo, cletlira, and sweet azalea: while occasionally 
the silver birch will mingle with the hardier beeches, 
oaks, maples, and pitch pines which grow not only 
in the valleys sheltered by the ridges, but even upon 
their crests, where the soil is nowhere more than 
three or four inches deep, but where moisture, by 
a peculiar provision of the sand at Provinceto^vn, 
comes to within a few inches of the surface, even 
durmg periods of protracted drought. 

Where the mat of plant roots has been dis- 
turbed the temporarily anchored sand immediately 
takes up its arrested motion, and it is no uncom- 
mon sight to see such verdant patches menaced by 
the encroaching dune to windward, their green 
trees and shrubs already half buried under the 
drift and doomed to certain extinction. 

Though now so bare of prospect. Provincetown, 
when first seen by the Pilgrhns. appeared to them 
" wooded to the brink of the sea." They described 
the harboiu- as encircled, except in the entrance, 
"with oaks, pines, juniper, sassafras, and other 
sweet wood." I'pon this, rejoicing greatly, they 



SHIFTING SANDS 107 

went ashore to see what the character of the hind 
might be, and foimd it '" a small neck of hind,*" be- 
. veen the bay and the sea, the sand liills much like 
the downs of Holland, but much better: " the crust 
of earth a spit's depth, excellent black earth, all 
wooded with oaks, pines, sassafras, juniper, holly, 
vines, some ash, and wahiut." 

Though it appears we must make some allow- 
ance for the enthusiastic exaggeration of a people 
weary of a sea voyage and of their homeless state, 
and predisposed in favour of a locality upon wliich 
they had built their fondest hopes, yet all the ac- 
coimts of the early explorers agree essentially as to 
the wooded character of the Cape, especially of the 
extremity: and old forest beds, long since buried 
in sands, crop out occasionally to prove that a con- 
siderable area, now arid, was once primeval forest. 
Tree stimips, visible at low tide near Wood End 
Lighthouse, as well as the name of tliis locality, 
bear out the local tradition that the forest extended 
well out to the extreme point of the Cape a centiu-y 
and a half ago. 

'We are told that large schooners were once built 
out of the timber that grew at Wellfleet, and old 
houses on the Cape are also built of the native 
wood. The reckless destruction of forests, ^vithout 
regard to future consequences, seems to have been 



108 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

the first concern of the original settlers throughout 
New England. At Cape Cod the trees were cut 
off to a great extent for fuel, not only for heating 
the houses, hut to aid the evaporaticni of salt in 
the salt works that soon became a prominent indus- 
try here. 

Practically every vestige of the salt mdustry on 
Cape Cod has been wiped out. I was fortunate, 
however, in meeting, in Barnstable, a gentleman 
■who had spent h.is youth in the business with his 
father, who owned the last salt works to be operated 
on the Cape. This gentleman was able to give me 
a beautiful photograph of the remains of the works 
as they were in 1872, showing about half the plant 
as it was when in active use, and to point out to me, 
from the steps of the court house their exact loca- 
tion on Barnstable Harbour, looking across the 
bay to Sandy Neck. This salt works occupied 
about twenty-five acres and was in active opera- 
tion from 1805 to 1874. 

The making of salt from sea water by solar evap- 
oration was begun in the town of Dennis, in 1776, 
by Jacob Sears, who built of wood a small vat near 
the shore and carried the water to it in pails. His 
project was the subject of much ridicule by his 
neighbours, who styled it " Sears' Folly." Jacob 
Sears made eight bushels that yesLY. The next year 




SALT WORKS OF LORING CROCKER AT BARNSTABLE IN 1872. 
THESE WERE THE LAST TO BE OPERATED ON CAPE COD. 



SHIFTING SANDS 100 

he made a vat two hundred and forty feet long and 
sixty feet wide and his crop was thirty bushels of 
salt. His perseverance may be the better appre- 
ciated when we know that it took from eighty to 
one hundred bushels of water to make one bushel 
of salt. Three years later Jacob Sears made an- 
other improvement; he secm-ed a pump from a 
vessel which had been wrecked near by, said to have 
been the British frigate Somerset, and pumped the 
water into his vats by hand. 

In 1785 Reuben Sears evolved the idea of em- 
ploying windmills to pump the water into the vats 
and built the first of its kind used for this purpose. 
From this invention the industry grew rapidly 
under the fostering care of the government until 
the year 1799, when the output was nearly four 
hundred thousand bushels of salt, while the vats 
spread over nearly a million and a half of square 
feet of uplands. The industry increased and was 
at its best about 1825, after M^hich it declined, and 
after 1875 was entirely abandoned. 

Meanwliile the inroad upon the woods occasioned 
by this industry was appalling. Every feature of 
the process called for wood. The vats were built 
upon studding of soft pine, the water drawn, by 
wooden windmills, through hollow logs as required. 
They varied in length but were uniformly eighteen 



no A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

feet wide and were built on sloping ground in sev- 
eral tiers to enable the water to flow from one vat 
to another, de])ositing various impurities before it 
made salt. The vats were uncovered to the sun and 
air but the process of evaporation was aided by 
artificial heat, which meant the consimiption of 
more wood. 

jNIuch timber was also employed for the construc- 
tion of the "flakes," for drying fish, which at first 
surrounded every dwelling house. Even so late 
as Thoreau's day he describes them "close up to 
the sills on all sides, with only a narrow passage two 
or three feet wide, to the front door ; so that instead 
of looking out into a flower or grass plot you looked 
on to so many square rods of cod turned wrong 
side outwards. . . . There were flakes of every age 
and pattern, and some so rusty and overgrown with 
lichens that they looked as if they might have 
served the foimders of the fishery here." No 
doubt they had, though some, he said, had broken 
down under the weight of successive harvests. All 
early writers make allusion to this feature of the 
unique town, where the drying of fish took the place 
of agricultural pursuits, and was spoken of amongst 
the natives in haying terms — for the fish had to be 
"turned" and "stacked" with the same constant 
reference to weather. 



SHIFTING SAXDS 111 

Forest fires contributed their quota towards the 
clearing of the wooded territory, and besides this 
cattle were allowed to range freely feeding upon 
the grasses and shrubs, so imj^ortant in controlling 
the drifting sands of the Cape. A writer in the 
year 1790 says that there were but two horses and 
two yoke of oxen kept in the town, but that about 
fifty cows were pastured in the sunken ponds 
and marshy j)laces found between the sand hills. 
" Here," says he, " the cows are seen wading and 
even swimming, plunging their heads into the 
water up to their horns, picking a scanty subsist- 
ence from the roots and herbs produced in the 
water." In winter they were fed upon the sedge 
cut in the flats, and this old writer goes on to ex- 
plain that a small quantity of such grasses, impreg- 
nated with the virtues of the sea air, is far more 
nutritive to cattle than a greater amount inland. 

It was not, however, until the released sand areas 
began to encroach upon the little town and to 
threaten the destruction of the valuable harbour 
that any effort was made to check the depredations 
upon the protective vegetation of the Cape. By 
this time the mischief was so great that the situa- 
tion had become indeed critical. When the sand 
blasts to the rear of the dwellings became so severe 
as to convert clear glass window-panes into opaque 



112 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

ground glass during the progress of one storm, 
even the most benighted of the citizens began to 
reahze that "something must be done" beyond 
the expedient of raising the houses upon stilts — 
which meant further inroads upon the woods — to 
allow the sand to blow under them, instead of bury- 
ing them as had sometimes happened. 

And the sand, of course, blew into the harbour, 
filling it up so rapidly that many houses now stand 
where a century ago small boats found convenient 
anchorage. Finally the complete destruction, for 
all practical purposes, of East Harbour, as a 
sample of what might be expected from the en- 
croaching sands, roused the citizens from their leth- 
argy- — ^a fresh-water marsh marks its original site 
— and one of the first ordinances recorded by the 
township of Truro forbade the cutting of timber 
on the lands bordering upon that body of water. 
This was in 1703. Formerly boats entered East 
Harbour through a narrow channel of swift water 
which separated Beach Point from the Truro side. 
Over this channel has been built, with great difR- 
culty, a dike or causeway, over which the Cape 
road leads to Provincetown. The fresh-water 
marsh, now called Pilgrim Lake, furnishes ice in 
winter, as do most of the ponds among the dunes 
in the region " out back," while, at the proper 



SHIFTING SANDS 113 

season, si^ortsmen in flat-bottomed row boats may 
be seen amongst the marsh grass and cat-o'-nine- 
tails which border its extent, lying in wait for 
ducks. 

Truro suffered bitterly from the extinction of 
her harbour, and was further afflicted by the filling 
up of Stouts Creek, to which we find many allu- 
sions in the old writings concerning this part of 
the Cape. Stouts Creek emptied into the back 
side — near its head stood one of the first huts 
erected bj^ the Humane Society — and it is de- 
scribed as having been a small branch of East Har- 
boiu". Originally it fertilized a body of salt marsh 
upon wdiich bordered once valuable farms; the 
meadow was mown every j'ear and yielded a con- 
siderable income to the proj^rietors of the farms 
and to the people of Truro: but, as early as 1802, 
the marsh is referred to as " long since destroyed," 
while the creek then scarcely existed, " appearing 
only like a small depression in the sand," and en- 
tirely dry at half tide. To-day no vestige of any- 
thing remains to establish even the location of the 
creek, the marsh, or the farms. 

In these early days " Cape Cod " was a part of 
Truro. When, in 1714, it was made a district or 
precinct, under the " constableric " of Truro, one 
of the first official measures of the provincial legis- 



114 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

lature was an act to protect the harbour by restrict- 
ing the rights of citizens or " sojourners " to cut the 
wood or permit cattle to browse in the salt marshes. 
At the same time the boxing and barking of pine 
trees for the production of pitch and turpentine 
was prohibited by a state statute. 

It was one thing to pass acts, however, and quite 
another to enforce them, when the sentiment of the 
public was not in their favour. The solitary keeper 
could not successfully oppose the depredations of 
his townsmen, and the devastation appears to have 
gone on hand in hand with the expenditure of 
yearly increasing sums to arrest the movement of 
the sands. 

A large sum was wasted in building a sea wall 
to prevent the encroachment of the tides. Tight 
bulkheads and plank jetties were erected at Beach 
Point and Long Point, involving immense labour 
and enormous expense, and were no sooner finished 
than the whole thing was swept away in one good 
gale. 

For more than a century great attention has 
been paid to the planting of beach grasses on the 
side of the hills and other naked spots near the 
town. The roots are set three or four feet apart in 
the spring, and the grass, being propagated both 
by the roots and the seed, if given half a chance, 




THE WIND WHIRLS THE DUNES INTO FANTASTIC SHAPES. 



SHIFTING SANDS 115 

forms a close body in three or four years. But 
when the government first set about this planting, 
instead of setting the grass in low places where it 
would spread, they jjlanted it on the hills where 
it had the full rake from the sea; the wind blew it 
out and nothing was accomplished. 

Furthermore it has been found out by bitter ex- 
perience that in order to make an effective barrier 
against drifting sands, and to give them stable 
character, the grass must be protected by the plant- 
ing of shrubs, and the shrubs in turn fortified by 
trees, and that it is only when the three are in 
alliance that the sand can be kej^t at bay. An 
examination of the waste lands of the back side 
now will show that once the mat of the plant roots 
is removed from a windward slope, the northwest 
gales cut into the wounded part of the dune and 
proceed to undermine the adjacent plant-covered 
slopes. Some of the most exquisite Japanese ef- 
fects are obtained by this destructive process. The 
crest of such a wounded dune, its slope descending 
^precipitously into a deep hollow, will show along 
its jagged summit, against the sky, the beautiful 
tracery of the roots in marvellous design. 

There is a wild grandeur about the desolation of 
the dunes back of Provincetown that has its own 
allure. Comprising about six thousand acres, less 



IK) A LOITERKR IN NEW ENGLAND 

tliaii half of which are wooded, their extent appears 
quite vast and ilHmitahle enough to create the illu- 
sion of a great desert. The sand itself, composed 
wholly of drift quartz, is very coarse compared with 
the silvery sands of the Jersey heaches. It is of a 
rich golden hue — taken in the hand it seems largely 
composed of ground cadmium. In itself it is val- 
uahle for many i)urposes, but its exportation ap- 
])ears to have been discontinued; however, I notice 
that in Boston sand very like it is used in winter 
u])on sli])])ery pavements with excellent effect. 
Old contracts for particular people frequently 
specified the use of Cape Cod sand in the composi- 
tion of mortar to be used in the masonry of build- 
ings. It was also used for cutting marble and 
granite, and a famous glass factory, employing the 
native product, was once in operation in Sandwich. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE PROVINCE LANDS 

Provincetown, or Province Town, as it used 
to be written, derives its name from an earlier des- 
ignation of the sandy extremity of the Cape. From 
a hne running from the bay beach to the back side, 
in the vicinity of the Atkins-JNIayo Road, which it 
crosses, the whole of the hook was set apart in the 
general allotment of property by the Pilgrim 
fathers as having no value for agricultural pur- 
poses, and reserved as a colonial fishing right to 
be held in common by the Colony of New 
Plymouth. 

The Colony of New Plymouth had received by 
royal patent a grant of all the coast from Cohasset 
to Narragansett in 1629-1630. The colony in turn 
granted parts of its domain to several sub-colonies. 
The ordinar}^ act of setting up a town in Massachu- 
setts began with a grant of land from the general 
court to a body of inhabitants ; this body of inhabit- 
ants then divided up the land; but in the case of 
"Cape Cod" that grant of land was omitted — all 
the other titles and privileges were given but the 

117 



118 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

title to the land was withheld. AVhen the governor 
of Plymouth, under an order of the general court, 
in order to substantiate his claim to the territory, 
purchased this tract from its aboriginal possessors, 
he specifically mentions that the said lands were 
"assigned for the Collonie's use for ffishing 
Improvements." 

Later, in 1692, when the Plymouth Colony was 
merged with the ISIassachusetts Bay Colony, the 
lands at the Cape being still reserved by the prov- 
ince for the benefit of the community, came to be 
called " province lands." 

When, in 1727, " Cape Cod " was separated from 
Truro, and incorporated into a township under the 
name of Province Town, an important provision of 
the act reserved to the province its right to the land, 
which right, it was stipulated, should be " in no wise 
prejudiced, the lands to be held in common as 
heretofore." 

When the provincial government came to an 
end these lands, expressly reserved to the prov- 
ince, became the property of the Commonwealth 
of jNIassachusetts. 

Until 1893 the state owned even the building 
sites upon which all private residences, shops, 
wharves, public buildings, etc., stood, there being 
no individual land proprietors in Provincetown, an 



THE PROVINCE LxVXDS 119 

umisiial situation leading to much dissatisfaction 
and misunderstanding amongst residents, and many 
ajjpeals. Finally, in the j^ear mentioned, against 
the hetter judgement of those who placed tlie wel- 
fare of the commonwealth ahove the personal con- 
siderations of a comparatively few disgruntled citi- 
zens, a measure was railroaded through the state 
legislatin*e by which about a thousand acres, in- 
cluding the whole of the inhabited portion of Prov- 
incetown, were released to the population in occu- 
pancy, and a line was fixed separating the Province 
Lands from the village of Provincetown. 

Previous to the passage of this act it is interest- 
ing to note that in all official documents the inhabit- 
ants of Provincetown were always referred to as 
" holders " or as " occupants " of the lands, never 
as " owners." In practice, however, the inhabit- 
ants, either wilfully or in true ignorance of the law, 
asserted the right of ownership, based on a variety 
of claims, including peaceable possession for a cen- 
tury, staking, fencing, inheritance by will, pur- 
chase, v/arranty deeds passed amongst themselves, 
and above all " local customs and usages." It seems 
very curious, but it is nevertheless true, that there 
are to-day people owning property in Province- 
town who have never heard of the former state 
ownership of their lands. 



120 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

By this statute jDrivate ownership is still impos- 
sible in the reserved portion lying to the north and 
west of the establislied line. This line follows more 
or less in the track of the Atkins-^Iayo Road 
through the wooded belt to the dunes, in a direc- 
tion which, if followed across to the back side, 
would come out about half way between the Peaked 
Hill Bar and the Crow Hill hfe saving stations; 
but turning sharply to the west not far beyond the 
railroad tracks it pursues a zig-zag course in that 
general direction for about three miles, and turns 
back again to the bay shore, meeting the coast at 
about the point where the Pilgrims are said to have 
landed, enclosing the town. This excludes Long 
Point, Wood End, Race Point, and the greater part 
of that extensive desert area behind the protective 
belt of woodland, all of which, with the exception 
of Long Point, ceded to the federal government 
during the Civil War, still is held as state property, 
under the original title of the Province Lands. 

This property, originally held by the forefathers 
to protect the fishing interests of the Cape, is now 
retained by the commonwealth as an important 
measure for the conservation of the harbour, thus 
enabling the authorities to exercise a more effective 
surveillance than would be possible were the areas 
under private ownership. 



thp: ruoviNCE lands 121 

The " ffishing Improvements " were considered a 
very valuable and imj)ortant asset to the fore- 
fathers. Cape Cod had established a rejiutation 
with this regard before they came to these shores, 
for had not Captain John Smith reported that five 
hundred sail of fishermen had rendezvous at the 
harbour, which they used as a refuge and as a head- 
quarters for their " bacchanalia " ? It was they who 
began the slaughter of the native woods, and they 
formed in a sense the first residents. 

The Pilgrims made of the tip of the Cape a 
source of considerable revenue to their colony. In 
early days, before any settlement was made here, 
the industrious forefathers worked their claim to 
the fishing privileges in the waters around Cape 
Cod largely during the summer season, using the 
land for cm'ing their fish, and returning to Plym- 
outh in the autumn. 

The original tract, now comprising the village 
of Provincetown, with Long Point across the har- 
bour, and the immense area of dunes from sea to 
sea, and extending east as far as a stream, named 
in the deed as Lovell's Creek, in Truro, was pur- 
chased from the Indians for the government and 
colony of New Plymouth, for the colony's use, in 
the year 1654, "or sometime before that date." 
The first deed of the land was given by an Indian 



122 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

called " Sampson " to Thomas Prence, the gover- 
nor of the colony, the consideration being " 2 brasse 
kettles, six coates, twelve houes, 12 axes, 12 knives, 
and a box." This deed was not recorded and all 
trace of it has been lost, but we know of its exist- 
ence and its conditions because it is referred to in 
a deed issued twenty-five years later, confirming 
the first one, and issued in order to satisfy the 
claims of the Indians, " Peter " and " Joshua," to 
part of the territory disposed of by Sampson with- 
out their knowledge or consent. The claims of 
"Peter" and "Joshua" were satisfied by the addi- 
tional payment of £5 10s., and the original of this 
deed, made to John Freeman, one of the assistants 
(;f the colony, "in belialf of the Government and 
Collonie of New Plymouth," is preserved in the 
ofiice of the secretary of the commonwealtli. 

The confirmatory deed is a delicious document, 
very meticulous as to boundaries. Peter and 
Joshua claimed, it seems, a piece (or prsell) of land 
" lying between sea and sea, from I^ovell's Creek 
to liittle Pond, called by the Indians Weakwoltli- 
tagesett, ranging from thence by a marked pyne 
tree southerly by a smale Red oak tree marked 
standing on the easterly end of the clift called ])y 
the Indians Lethtotogsett, because Cormorants 
used to roost there," etc. 



THE PROVINCE LANDS 123 

The Indians, Peter and Joshua, who had learned 
something since Sampson sold his birthright, re- 
served for themselves and their heirs the right to 
"sett theire Wigwams there — to cut firewood and 
beach grasse and flages for their use, and to gather 
wild pease huckleberryes and cramberries" (the m 
is not a misprint, and I like it, for it was as cram- 
berries that I first learned to love this delicious 
fruit) "and to have such Whales and Blackffish 
porpusses and blubber as should cast on shore be- 
tween the said Louell's Creek and the Clift afore- 
said." This deed is dated February 5, 1679. 

It is rather satisfactory to note throughout the 
dealings of the Pilgrims with the aborigines a strict 
sense of justice and honesty. By these deeds we 
see that the Plymouth colonists recognized the title 
of the Pamet Indians to the Cape, and took care 
not to dispossess by force or by trick, but to pur- 
chase the lands in equity. 

The origin of the first permanent settlement of 
Cape Cod is shrouded in mystery, but its probable 
date has been fixed at about 1680. Squatter fisher- 
men from various places certainly formed the first 
settlers. Under the old ruling fishermen living in 
the town might take as much of the unoccupied 
common lands as necessary for their homes and 
their industry, and any part of the shore — not al- 



124 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

ready in use — to the extent of their needs. To 
offset the disadvantage of not being permitted to 
own land, the inhabitants of the Province Lands 
were for more than a century (until 1790) exempt 
from taxation and accorded further privileges in 
order to encourage settlement, not only to provide 
a shelter in conjunction with a harbour of such pri- 
mary importance, but in recognition of the great 
public benefit of the employment of its citizens. 
The lands of Cape Cod could never support its in- 
habitants — it is therefore as a nursery for seamen 
that it was then, and is still, one of the most impor- 
tant places in the country. 

The custom of leasing the bass fishery at the 
Cape to such roving fishermen as applied was early 
established; and the income thus derived was used 
to support the schools of Barnstable, Plymouth, 
Duxbury, and other towns in the colony. After- 
wards, as the income increased, it was extended to 
other public uses. We find in the rare early rec- 
ords of Cape Cod that, in the year 1684, the bass 
fishing was leased to William Clark, of Plymouth, 
for a term of seven years, at £30 per annum. 

The village of Provincetown is built along a 
narrow strip of reclaimed land lying in the lee of the 
inner range of dunes bordering the harbour. This 
inner range of hills begins at ISIount Ararat and 



THE PROVINCE LANDS 125 

Mount Gilboa, back of East Harbour, and, fol- 
lowing tbe semicircular contour of tbe shore, ter- 
minates in Stevens' Point, Telegraph Hill, Miller 
Hill, and Town Hill, that landmark for miles 
around, upon whose summit stands the Pilgrim 
Monument. Bradford Street in part runs over the 
crest of the inner range, commanding superb bird's- 
eye views of the harbour, while Commercial Street 
hugs the shore line, the bulk of the population being 
lined up on the inner side facing that absorbing 
spectacle. 

The town is altogether unique. Thoreau called 
it the most completely maritime town he had ever 
seen, and his description, except for the loss of 
the picturesque windmills of the salt works, on the 
water side, might stand to-day, so little has the 
town changed in general character in the last sixty 
years. It is still merely "an inhabited beach . . . 
without any back country." I suppose every sum- 
mer visitor feels the same disappointment with 
Provincetown upon his first encounter — the place 
has so little the character of a resort, and while 
the people are the kindest and most hospitable 
to be found in all New England, there is so little 
domination by the summer colony. 

We think of ourselves as bringing so much life 
and gaiety to such a place and picture the "na- 



126 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

lives " disconsolate after our departure; but my 
landlady told me in confidence that she " liked bet- 
ter when the summer folks had gone, and they ain't 
so much passin'." 

The " passin' " is indeed a consideration in Prov- 
incetown, since it all takes place along that narrow 
plank walk, built on the inner side of Commercial 
Street from the town's share of the surplus reve- 
nue distributed by the state in Jackson's adminis- 
tration. "Up along" and "down along" it runs 
for a good three miles before the residential edging 
of the sand-hills, and is the only paving that the 
town affords; for those who would tramp Brad- 
ford Street, or cut through the narrow lanes that 
connect, at intervals, the two thoroughfares, must 
take to the dirt road, itself, however, a vast improve- 
ment over the heavy sandy ways of half a century 
ago. Thoreau speaks of pictures of Provincetown 
in which the inhabitants are not drawn below the 
ankles, so much being supposed to be buried in the 
sand. And one has not to go far afield to experi- 
ence the probable truth of this whimsical statement. 
As to the peculiar Provincetown gait, by which the 
girls in those days were said to dump the sand from 
their slippers at each step, though I questioned 
many they smiled knowingly and would give no 
satisfactory answer. I suspect it is an art like the 




HE PROVlNtK lands: GOINC. GUNNING . 

ROM A WATER COLOUR BY UOUGE MAC KNIGHT. 



THE PROVINCE LANDS 127 

wearing of the kilt, to which one is born, and no 
trick to be caught by a floating population. 

One thing we all noticed was a supreme superi- 
ority of the " natives " in their attitude towards the 
plank walk. We summer folks were vastly con- 
scious of its limits, and scrupulously made room for 
one another to pass, whereas the indigenous seemed 
oblivious to its advantages — they never turned 
aside for anybody, would crowd you into the street 
or on to the sandy margin with utmost unconcern 
and apparent rudeness ; but on the other hand they 
themselves walked as readily in one place as an- 
other. It was not until I happened to read that 
some of the inhabitants were so provoked because 
they did not receive their particular share in the 
surplus revenue, that they persisted in walking in 
the sand a long time after the sidewalk was built, 
that I began to understand. Added to a knowledge 
of the New England character it furnished the key 
to the whole situation. 

There was old Nathaniel Woodbury, at Folly 
Cove; he opposed the building of the trolley car 
line that passed his property in circling Cape Ann. 
His official protest availed nothing, and the road 
was built ; so during the remainder of his long life 
the old man proceeded to ignore the existence of 
the offence. When he walked out he walked in the 



128 A LOITERER IX XEW EXCiEAXD 

middle of the track, and, as he was totally deaf and 
well known to the motor men of the line, most of 
whom are Gloucester boys, they had no choice but 
to murder him or to stop the car and escort the ob- 
stinate old fellow out of the way. Of course they 
chose the more humane course, and it became a 
typical scene at the Folly, to see a stalled car and a 
courtly motorman leading Mr. Woodbury out of 
harm's way. I made the faux pas one day of asking 
the old gentleman what time the cars passed for 
Gloucester, and he answered with a certain fine 
irony, standing beneath the beautiful apple trees of 
his ancestral home : " They run by right often when 
they ain't off track — but they're generally off 
track." And so having deftly damned them as in- 
efficient modern trivialities, he turned his sea-blue 
eyes off to that point of the horizon where their 
color found its counterpart and relapsed into a 
sphinx-like reverie. 

No. Provincetown is not beautiful in the ac- 
cepted sense of the term. There are no grassy 
lawns sweeping down to the sea, as at Magnolia 
and Prides; there is no cliff walk, as at X^ewport; 
there are no clean swept sheltered nooks along the 
sands, as at Annisquam; no dreamy, antiquated 
l)uryijig ground, as at Plymouth; while the a]v 
proach to its jnece de resistance, that heavenly 



THE PROVINCE LANDS 129 

back country, that dream of dunes, ponds, and 
cranberry bogs is infested with a belhgerent horde 
of mosquitoes, through which one must pass, as St. 
Francis of Assisi through the flames. 

The hn'e of Provincetown is deeper and more 
substantial. It adapts itself to the summer resi- 
dents with the same complaisance that it tolerates 
the increasing presence of the Portuguese. Both 
bring changes with them; both contribute to the 
growth and prosperity of the town ; but neither de- 
flects it from its course. In this respect Province- 
town has much in common with foreign seaport 
towns, or for that matter with foreign metropolitan 
cities. Paris, in the old happy days, did not stand 
still to admire the innovations of the etrangers, 
neither did it alter its ways because of them; it 
graciously permitted them to enjoy its beauty and 
share its privileges. 

Provincetown does the same, and so far as I can 
see, beyond the erection of a few pergolas and lat- 
ticed screens, at the east end of the town, the city 
folks have had no effect at all upon its intrinsic 
quaintness. The chief, the sole, the endless indus- 
try of the town is fishing, and the Portuguese who 
have come there have been taken and shaped to that 
end. What local colour they have added is to the 
picturesque advantage of the town ; they have their 



130 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

" quarter " in the west end, and have redeemed 
some of the waste land in the rear. The first of the 
Portuguese settlers were brought as stowaways 
from the Azores by the old whalers and deep-sea 
fishers who touched at these islands, and many of 
them emigrated in this surreptitious fashion to 
avoid military duty. Since they are excellent fish- 
ermen they make useful citizens, and though they 
do not assimilate with the Cape Cod folks, yet I 
believe the Latin influence has had a softening ef- 
fect in the temper of this locality, just as the Scan- 
dinavians and Finnish have intensified the harder 
features of Cape Ann. 

The flakes and the salt works have given place to 
cold-storage plants, and the native product is 
handled more in wholesale than formerly, and many 
of the smaller wharves are rotting away, a number 
having been lost in the unprecedented rigors of 
winter before last. Railroad wharf presents the 
scene of greatest activity, especially on a Saturday 
night, when the mackerel schooners discharge their 
cargoes, and the men can be seen, by the light of 
torches, standing knee deep in the shimmering, iri- 
descent fish, tossing them to the receivers through 
the great open doors of the fish house, where all 
thi-ough the week they are split, cleaned, salted, and 
packed in barrels; or unloading them direct upon 



THE PROVINCE LANDS 131 

the cars that will carry them to Boston, by means 
of an instrument with one iron prong built on the 
pitchfork plan. To facilitate this business, as al- 
ready mentioned, a branch of the railroad is car- 
ried far out on the long wharf, uniting the one kind 
of transportation with the other. 

It is well known that the settlement of Province- 
town began on what is now known as Long Point, 
that remote extension of the hook, marking the ter- 
mination of the spiral enclosing the harbour. 
Thirty-eight families, with a total of about two 
hundred souls, once constituted the active popula- 
tion of this strip of sand, having chosen that locality 
on account of its proximity to the fishing grounds, 
by which it was indeed surrounded. It was for 
these to suffer the full penalty for having occupied 
the Province Lands — for the federal government 
laid claim to the point as a measure of war during 
the Rebellion, and as the state ceded the territory 
its occupants were summarily dispossessed. Find- 
ing the ground taken from under their feet, as it 
were, with much grumbling there was nothing left 
for the unfortunate inhabitants but to take up their 
homes and go. Accordingly one fine day the houses 
on Long Point were loaded upon scows and all set 
sail for the mainland, settling anew at the western 
end of the town, near what is called Gull Hill. One 



132 A l.OTTKKKK IX NEW KXGI.AXD 

of the last buildings to go was the school-house, 
built in 1840 and serving sixty scholars, raised on 
the point, besides the whole pojDulation on Sundays 
as a meeting house. This edifice is proudly pointed 
out by residents as a sturdy survivor of this expe- 
rience, and, devoted to business, now stands on the 
shore side of Commercial Street, a few doors east 
of the railroad tracks. 

Fishing and the manufacture of salt occupied the 
adult po23ulation of Long Point. Sweep seines 
were employed in catching mackerel and shad, and 
the knitting of seines by hand provided work for 
the women. The ruins of two sand batteries put 
up here during the Civil War are still visible. Now 
the lighthouse, and a wharf built on the north side 
of the point by John Atwood, and later used by 
the Cape Cod Oil Works, are the only buildings 
left. 

The earliest existing town records begin wnth the 
year 1724; before that date we have only tradition 
to depend upon for the early history of Province- 
town. Under the date December 7, 1773, we find: 
"Voted that any purson should be found getting 
cranberys before ye twentyth of September exceed- 
ing one quart should be liable to pay one doler and 
have the berys taken away." I^ater it was voted, to 
stimulate interest in the matter, " That thev who 



THE PTJOYTXCE T.AXDS 13;J 

shall find any [)iir.s()n,s so iji'atherinf;' sliall liavc 
them ( () and the doler." 

In 1801, owing to the prevalence of smallpox in 
the town it was voted that "any person who is head 
of any family, who shall permit to the niimher of 
six persons to meet together at his house for frol- 
icking or any unnescery purposes shall pay to the 
use of the town a sum not exceeding fifty dollors." 
The town decreed on ]\farch .5, 1810, that " guese 
should not go at large in the town this year." The 
verv brevity of this record seems to indicate the in- 
tensity of feeling that prompted the measure. 

Upon another occasion the Town Meeting met 
to consider the case of Hannah Rider who seems to 
have been pathetically resourceless, and voted ston- 
ily that " she would not be supported by the town." 
A year later, her tragedy being still on the books, it 
was "Voted that Ebenezear Rider" (whose rela- 
tionship to the unfortunate one is not disclosed) 
"keep Hannah Rider for 45 dolers this year, if the 
selectmen cannot get anybody to keep her for less." 



CHAPTER VII 

THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE: THE 

FOREFATHERS DISCOVER THE 

CAPE 

That handsome exotic, the Pilgrim Memorial 
Monument, erected upon Town Hill, in Province- 
town, in 1910, by citizens widely scattered through 
the country, liberally aided by the national treas- 
ury and the Commonwealth of JMassachusetts, is 
the culmination of a belated effort on the part of 
Provincetown to establish its priority as the first 
landing place of the Pilgrims in this country. 

Though early in the nineteenth century John 
Quincy Adams and others recognized Cape Cod 
as the original landing place of the Forefathers, it 
was not until the recovery of the Bradford INIanu- 
script, with its complete history of the voyage of 
the May Flower, its chance arrival at Cape Cod, 
and the incidents that occupied the several weeks 
during which the vessel lay in this harbour, that 
Provincetown awoke to a full sense of its own im- 
portance and claimed its share of glory and renown. 

134 



THE ISIAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 135 

The monument commemorates, in a substantial 
form, which cannot be overlooked, the landfall of 
the Pilgrims at Cape Cod, November 11, 1620; 
their anchorage in the harbour; the adoption of the 
Compact in the cabin of the May Flower on the 
day of arrival; the birth of Peregrine White, the 
first white child born in New England; the death of 
Dorothy Bradford, the wife of the historian of 
the colony, who fell overboard and was drowned 
in the harbour; the explorations in search of a 
place for permanent colonization; and the entire 
train of events which preceded the settlement at 
Plymouth. 

All these things had been known, having been 
fully enough revealed in Mourt's Belations which 
had been first printed in England in 1622 and had 
never been subject to the romantic adventures 
which befell the Bradford history, lost to sight for 
more than a century, and of which we shall have 
more to say later. But Provincetown has always 
been a simple little place, with no historic preten- 
sions, while Plymouth, having so notable a past to 
treasure, quite naturally absorbed also the small 
part that was rightfully Provincetown's own until 
in the general mind the events in Pilgrim history, 
even those of great importance, which preceded the 
official Landing upon the "Rock" had become 



136 A LOITERER IX NEW EXCxLAND 

hopelessly confounded and the identity of the two 
towns merged by careless narrators. 

When the Bradford manuscript came to light 
acain in 18.56, after years of oblivion, it was printed 
from the manuscript of the document, secured from 
London, within a few weeks of its identification, in 
the proceedings of the ^Massachusetts Historical 
Society for that year, and the whole Pilgrim ques- 
tion became a live issue. Its revival at that time 
precipitated the erection of the first Forefathers' 
IMonument, at Plymouth. 

The surrender of the manuscript in 1897, ^vhen it 
was consigned by the Bishop of London to the 
Commonwealth of INIassachusetts, and deposited in 
the State House in Boston, brought the subject 
still more poignantly before the attention of his- 
torians and descendants of the Plymouth Colony, 
and bore fruit again in the Provincetown monu- 
ment. Before the question of the final disposition 
of the manuscript was settled there was some ri- 
valry between the two towns chiefly concerned, both 
anxiously setting forth their respective claims to 
the honour of possessing the relic. " Had they (the 
first coiners) been fishermen or mariners, instead of 
a pastoral and agricultural people," wrote an ag- 
grieved Provincetonian at this time in defence of 
the priority of his town, "Plymouth Rock would 



THE MAV 1 L()\VP:irS VOYAGK l.'JT 

never have become so celebrated in history nor so 
often referred to as the place where the Pilgrims 
first landed." 

The reasons for such a memorial then are ob- 
vious and incontrovertible, and the monument is 
dignified and simple enough in itself not to offend, 
as does that ponderous pile at Plymouth, which 
overdoes the symbolic and the literal on a scale 
which makes one turn with relief to this slender 
alien — this transplanted Torre del Mangia of 
Siena — than which, however, nothing really could 
be more unrelated either to the purj^ose which it 
serves or to its barren surroundings. 

A granite tower rising from a sand dune — from 
a desert where is not to be found one native stone 
throughout its miles of extent — it defies the sense 
of homogeneity! Furthermore, why should Ameri- 
cans in the twentieth centin*y hark back to Italy of 
the fourteenth century for an architectural type 
wherewith to express comemmorative sentiments 
connected with Pilgrim Englishmen of the seven- 
teenth century ? 

" When once you have seen the Mangia," wrote 
Howells, " all other towers, obelisks, and columns 
are tame and vulgar and earthrooted ; that seems 
to quit the ground, to be not a monument but a 
flight." So far so good — the type was of the best, 



138 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

and the plans for the structure were made in the 
office of the engineers of the United States army 
in Boston, and the construction was thoroughly 
and carefully supervised by that office, after the 
manner of government buildings. 

But in adapting the type certain important con- 
siderations were overlooked. The original Torre 
del Mangia has remarkable distinction even in 
Italy, the land of beautiful towers, from its ex- 
treme slenderness, its great height, and absolute 
plainness until it flowers out at the summit with the 
long machicolations of the cornice and belfry 
stage above them. Attached to the Palazzo Pub- 
blico of Siena, this tower rises from a depression in 
the brick-paved semicircular court which ap- 
proaches it. Viewed from a distance it dominates 
exquisitely the ancient Tuscan city; at hand it is 
entertainingly seen through rifts between buildings 
where narrow streets converge from the main 
thoroughfare to this civic centre. 

The Palazzo Pubblico dates from 1289 to 1309 
and the tower was added between 1325 and 1345, 
and is perhaps the simplest and most i)erfect pro- 
portioned tower in Italy. Its name, Torre del 
Mangia — tower of the hector — refers to the 
bronze colossus, formerly attached to the large 
clock on the face of this tower which struck the 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 139 

hours. Built of brick and travertine, the latter a 
porous light yellow rock of Italy — a calcareous 
deposit from springs which hardens on exposure — 
its materials are essentially indigenous. The main 
shaft is of brick perforated throughout with regu- 
larity which gives variety to the surface and light- 
ness to the structure, while the summit is of the 
light stone — the whole bathed in warm red and 
orange, colors which harmonize gloriously with the 
setting. It is so padded, according to the well 
understood laws of perspective as to appear per- 
fectly rectilinear, whereas the Provincetown tower 
has distinctly a waist — its lines appearing to slope 
in towards the middle. 

The Provincetown tower follows only approxi- 
mately the proportions of the Siena type : it is a few 
feet shorter and a little thicker. Designed to ac- 
company other buildings as part of a synthetic 
group and to occupy a low site approached by a 
sloping paved yard, it has in this reproduction 
been detached from all architectural support and 
mounted upon the brow of a hill. Planned for exe- 
cution in light, native materials, it has been repro- 
duced wholly in rough substantial blocks of Maine 
granite, unrelieved; and its color, in a setting as 
warm and mellow as that of Italy, is cold, grey, and 
unrelated. The openings between the supporting 



UO A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

corbels of the parapet are a relic of mediceval de- 
fence, having been devised for the dropping of 
stones upon assailants, and are the more absurd in 
a locality devoid of such primitive missiles. 

This is the Torre del Mangia, perhaps, but robbed 
of its heart, bereft of its soul. Like some choice 
ancient epic in elegant language done into a ruder 
modern tongue, it has lost all its essence in the 
translation. 

" Of all monuments raised to the memory of 
distinguished men," wrote Josiah Quincy, "the 
most appropriate and the least exceptionable are 
those whose foundations are laid in their own works, 
and which are constructed of materials supplied 
and wrought by their own labours." 

The Pilgrims left such a monument, and how- 
ever gloriously Plymouth may have been the in- 
strimient of its development, it was in Province- 
town harbour that the foundations were laid, for 
it was here that the Compact, that remarkable doc- 
ument which was in its way the forerunner of the 
Constitution, was framed and signed by forty-one 
members of the 3/rt// Flotcer company. Baylie in 
his History of X'ew Plymouth thus refers to it: 
" The Pilgrims from tlieir notions of primitive 
Christianity the force of circumstances and that 
pure moral feeling which is the offspring of true 




THE SLENUEK ALIEN — ITALY S TKA.N SILA.N TLU 
TORRE DEL MANGIA — AS A PILGRIM MONUMENT 
3N THE TIP END OF CAPE COD. 




THE PILGRIM MONUMENT AT PROVl NCETOW N 
AS SEEN FROM THE DUNES. 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 141 

religion, discovered a truth in the science of govern- 
ment which had been concealed for ages. On the 
bleak shore of a barren wilderness, in the midst of 
desolation, with the blasts of winter howling around 
them, and surrounded with dangers in their most 
awful and appalling forms the pilgrims of Leyden 
laid the foundations of American Liberty." 

The Compact was a measure of precaution 
framed and adopted to check certain dissensions 
that had arisen within the 3laij Flower company 
when they found themselves about to land outside 
the colony of Virginia, for which their patent was 
taken. We must remember that the Pilgrims, after 
twelve years' voluntary exile in Holland, as an es- 
cape from religious persecution, succeeded in ob- 
taining a grant of land from the London Company 
for the purpose of founding a colony in Virginia. 

" Virginia " in those days was a comprehensive 
term applied to a considerable portion of the con- 
tinent of America, and of which the state now 
known by that name was but an inconspicuous part. 
At the time of James I the English claimed domin- 
ion over territory extending from Cape Fear, in 
North Carolina, to Halifax, in Nova Scotia. The 
Atlantic Ocean constituted the eastern boundary — 
westward its limits were indefinite. 

The rights to the settlement of this territory were 



M<2 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

divided between two companies — the Plymoiitli 
Company and the London Company. The Plym- 
outh Company controlle(] a tract extending north 
from about the present locahty of New Vork City 
to the present southern bouiuhiry of Canada, and 
included the whole of what Captain John Smith in 
his famous map had set apart as " New England." 
The land to the westward of New England, and of 
which little was known, was broadly designated as 
North Virginia. " The Plymouth Company " was 
composed of " knights, gentlemen, and merchants " 
of the west of England. 

" The London Company " was composed of 
" noblemen, gentlemen, and merchants " chiefly of 
London, and it controlled a district extending from 
the mouth of the Potomac, southward to Cape 
Fear, under the general title of South Virginia. 
Between these two tracts was the country under 
the dominion of the Dutch based on the discoveries 
of Henry Hudson, destined to go ultimately to 
whichever company should first plant a self-sup- 
porting colony. 

Originally the Pilgrims had no intention of 
settling in New England. As early as the summer 
of 1617 the Pilgrim Society at Leyden had de- 
cided to send a detachment of its most vigorous 
members to establish a foothold in America. Hoi- 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 143 

land had offered the exiles perfect freedom and 
systematic legal toleration and j^rotection. To the 
number of three hundred had they fled to the Neth- 
erlands from the birthplace of the parent church at 
Scrooby, accompanied by the two spiritual leaders 
of the independent movement — William Brewster, 
who organized the Separation in his own drawing- 
room at Scrooby Manor, and John Robinson, of 
Lincolnshire, a man of great learning and rare 
sweetness of temper, distinguished, moreover, for a 
breadth and tolerance unusual in the Puritans of 
that day. Of John Robinson Fiske says: " we can 
hardly be wrong in supj^osing that the compara- 
tively tolerant behaviour of the Plymouth colonists, 
whereby they were contrasted with the settlers of 
Massachusetts, was in some measure due to the 
abiding influence of the teachings of this admirable 
man." 

Robinson kept the flock together and conveyed 
them to Leyden in 1600, just as the Spanish gov- 
ernment, having abandoned the task of conquering 
Holland had granted the Dutch the Twelve Years' 
Truce. In Leyden their numbers grew from three 
hundred to over a thousand, and they sup])orted 
themselves in various ways, the leaders taking to 
intellectual pursuits. Robinson taught in the Uni- 
versity; Brewster published theological books; and 



144 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Bradford, who was of the original emigration from 
Scrooby, perfected himself in the study of lan- 
guages, especially Hebrew, wishing, as he tells us in 
his narrative, to " see with his own eyes the ancient 
oracles of God in all their native beauty." 

There were several reasons for the Pilgrims' de- 
sire to set up for themselves in a new country des- 
pite the security and peace which they had enjoyed 
in Holland. They were, after all, foreigners in this 
little country, and the spirit of nationality was 
strong within them ; complete toleration did not an- 
swer their crying need, which was for complete self- 
government ; the expiration of the truce with Spain 
might mean the recommencement of all their 
troubles; but greatest of all reasons was the dread 
of absorption into a foreign nation. They had 
come as an organized community, and, says Fiske, 
" They wished to preserve their English speech and 
English traditions, keep up their organization, and 
find some favoured spot where they might lay the 
corner-stone of a great Christian state." 

Many sites for the planting of this Pilgrim 
colony were considered and rejected for one cause 
and another: Guiana, which Sir Walter Raleigh 
had so favourably described, was thought too tropi- 
cal a clime for northerners of thrifty, industrious 
habits, as well as dangerously exposed to the Span- 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 145 

iards; New England, according to Smith's minute 
discoveries and descriptions, was rejected as too 
cold ; the country already peopled by the colony of 
Jamestown presented difficulties in the matter of 
religion. Episcopacy having already taken root 
there. 

There remained available the vicinity of the 
Delaware River, which offered opportunities for 
the founding of an independent colony, and the 
Pilgrims were inclined to this locality, having been 
charmed by the narratives of the Dutch voyages to 
America. 

The colonization of the coast of this continent 
had become the avowed policy of the British gov- 
ernment. The Pilgrims secured the favour of Sir 
Edwin Sandj^s, an influential member of the Lon- 
don Company, through whom negotiations were 
begun and the necessary capital raised. The 
enterprise was financed by seventy merchant ad- 
venturers of England to the amount of £7,000, and 
the earnings of the settlers were to be thrown into 
a common stock until these subscribers should have 
been remunerated. John Carver, afterwards the 
first governor of the Plymouth Colony, and Robert 
Cushman, their "ancient friend," composed the 
deputation that went to England to put this mat- 
ter through; and though the king refused them a 



14.; A I.OITKKKU IX NKW KMiLAXl) 

charter, he i)roiiiised to wink at their lieresy aiul 
not to molest them in their new home. 

The Levden eongreuation numhered. at about 
this time, nearly a thousand souls. Since it was not 
possible for all o\^ them to be transported toufether, 
even had it been deemed prudent to unseat the en- 
tire flock in this hazardous enterprise, it was de- 
cided to send but a detaehment of the Pilgrims to 
America to make a settlement and to pave the 
way for the removal of the remainder at some later 
time. John Robinson remained at Leyden witli the 
main body of the congregation, and. as it happened, 
never came to America: the advance guard, con- 
stituting '"the youngest and the strongest." was put 
under the spiritual leadershi]i of Elder Brewster, 
who, together with William Bradford. John Car- 
ver. a!ul Allies Standish the soldier, took charge of 
the exodus. 

Meanwhile those about to depart set about the 
burning of their ships behind them. They sold 
their estates, disposed of their household goods, and 
converted all their ]^roperty into portable form 
suitable to voyagers who set out upon an unknown 
quest, and who never expect to return. 

The colony as first organized represented a com- 
nninity interest — the terms of agreement dictated 
bv the " adventurers." as the members of the Lon- 



TTIK MAY FLOWKirS VOYAGK UT 

don Company were styled. The services of eacli 
j>lanter or eiiiigTant over sixteen years of age 
were rated at £lO. which was counted as equivalent 
to one share in the colony. The anticipated profits 
to be earned by the colonists by "trade, trucking, 
working, fishing, or any other means " Mere to bo 
]^ooled. and at the end of seven years the capital and 
profits, namely, the houses, lands, goods, and chat- 
tels, divided between the adventurers and the plant- 
ers, according to their respective interests. 

This contract was far from pleasing to the 
l-lanters. They particularly objected to dividing 
their houses and lands, especially gardens and home 
lots, with the adventurers at the end of seven years' 
toil, and they thought, too. that their entire time 
should not have been guaranteed to the community 
interests, but that they shoidd have been allowed 
two days in the week for themselves, in accordance 
with conditions first agreed upon by the Pilgrims at 
Leyden. The burden of responsibility for the as- 
sent to the altered contract rested upon Robert 
Cushman — Carver pleaded absence at Southamp- 
ton on other business of the planters at the time. 
This was the first bone of contention amongst the 
planters and the cause of much trouble and dis- 
satisfaction. 

"Meanwhile two ships, the SpccilicclJ and the 



us A 1A)1 rKKKK 1\ NEW KXGLAXD 

MiiN Floiccr were secured and equipped for the 
voyage. The smaller of these, the S pccdiccll . a 
burden of some sixty tons. Mas bought and titted in 
Holland and was intended to convey the emigrants 
to the English port, to make the voyage to America, 
anil to remain with the Pilgrims in their new home 
for use in fishing and other purposes. The Mai/ 
Floiccr. a vessel twice the size of the SprcdiccU. 
was hired at London. Her name does not appear 
in the "Bradford history, nor does that of the Spccd- 
tcclL but we lind the former named in the Plym- 
outh records for 10-3 — it was a common name 
for ships — and the latter Nathaniel ^lorton men- 
tions in his New England's Memorial. The Spccd- 
tt( // sailed from Delf shaven, on the Maas, just be- 
low Rotterdam, carrying the party down to South- 
ampton, where the Ma/f Fhnccr was to join them. 

Bradford makes a touching picture oi^ the em- 
barkation at Delf shaven. Many friends accom- 
panied them to the ship to take final leave of them, 
and many came also from ^Vmsterdam, of the other 
Puritan exiles. There was little sleep during the 
night that preceded the parting: it was spent in en- 
tertainment. Christian discourse, and expressions of 
affection. But the next day, " the winde being faire, 
they wente aborde. and their friends with them, 
where truly dolfull was the sight of that sade and 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 149 

inouriifiill parting; to see what sighs and sobbs and 
priiires did sound amongst them, what tears did 
gush from every eye, and ])ithy speeches ])eirst each 
harte; that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood 
on the key as spectators, could not refraine from 
tears." 

The voyage to Southampton was quickly made 
with a " prosperous " wind; and here they found the 
bigger ship — the ^laij Flower was a vessel of one 
liundred and eighty tons — which had come from 
London, lying ready with all the rest of the com- 
l)any. This was about the second of July, but it 
Avas not until September 6 that the actual depar- 
ture from pjugland was made. There were two 
captains — Captain Reinolds of the Speedwell and 
Captain Jones of the J/«// Flower. After a brief 
stop at Soutliam})ton the I^ilgrims set sail in the 
two ships. The Speedwell sprang a leak and they 
stopped at Dartmouth for repairs — "to their 
great charge and losse of time and a faire winde.'' 
Being put into condition both vessels again put to 
sea with all confidence, but when they had put an 
liundred leagues between themselves and Land's 
End, keeping all the while within hailing distance 
of one another, tlie master of the smaller ship again 
complained of the feeble condition of his craft, 
and it was decided to put botli vessels back into 



150 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

harbour at Plymouth. There, though no special 
leak could be found, it was decided to abandon 
the smaller craft for general weakness, and to 
condense the company and provisions into the 
capacity of the larger vessel, which was done with 
much delay and discouragement. 

Bradford does not hesitate to say that while there 
was undoubtedly some unseaworthiness in the 
Speedwell, it seemed to proceed from being " over 
masted and too much pressed with sayles"; for 
when, afterwards, she was sold and put into her 
" old trim," she made many voyages and performed 
her functions successfully and to the profit of her 
owners. The real trouble seems to have lain with 
the captain and crew, who, being engaged to re- 
main a year in America to stand by the colony, be- 
came apprehensive of a shortage of provisions and 
general discomfort and j^rivation. There were not 
wanting those amongst the passengers also who 
were glad to turn back from so perilous a journey, 
and so the leaking of the vessel was trumped up to 
give face to their timidity. 

Amongst those who turned back with the Speed- 
tvell was Robert Cushman with his family. Cush- 
man based his desire to return upon ill health, but 
it is probable that the internal dissensions of the 
colonists reacted bitterly upon him, since it was he 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 151 

who acted for them in accepting the contract with 
the London Comj^any, so unsatisfactory to them 
that they sailed without signing it. He came out, 
however, the following year in the Fortune, bring- 
ing with him his son, Thomas, a lad of fourteen 
years, who was adopted into Governor Bradford's 
family and succeeded Brewster as elder of the 
Plymouth Church. 

Now, " all comjiacte togeather in one shipe," the 
Maij Flotcer \)ui to sea again, alone, on September 
C), with "aboute a hundred sowls." Bradford lists 
them all carefully at the end of his manuscript his- 
tory. There was one birth, that of " Oceanus " 
Hopkins, in mid-ocean, and William Butten, a serv- 
ant to Samuel Fuller, died as they drew near the 
coast, so that the original number of planters re- 
mained intact upon the arrival of the vessel in Cape 
Cod Harbour. One more was born in the harbour 
and six died in the month of December before the 
actual landing at Plymouth. The voyage con- 
sumed over two months and was a terrible experi- 
ence. The May Flower has been estimated to have 
been not more than ninety-seven and a half feet in 
length by twenty in width; but whatever her pro- 
portions a vessel of one hundred and eighty tons' 
burden makes small quarters for over an hundred 
people — the captain and crew are not counted in 



152 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

Bradford's list. The passengers were not more 
than half strong men capable of enduring the ex- 
posure and privations of such a voyage, but in- 
cluded many women and young children. The 
stock of provisions had been cut doAvn before the 
party left Southampton, for when the planters re- 
fused to sign the contract the agent for the adven- 
turers held back the money upon which they had 
counted for their initial expenses, so that they were 
forced to sell some of their provisions to finance 
their departure from this port. Further inroads 
upon their stock were made during the time lost 
in the two false starts that were made with the 
Speedwell, before the final getting away from 
Plymouth, England. 

Small wonder that after a tempestuous voyage 
in the roughest time of the year, under living con- 
ditions that must have been wellnigh insupport- 
able, that the Pilgrims saw everything at Province- 
town eouleur de rose. They were aiming, we 
should remember, for a country farther south, but 
lost their reckoning in the storms through which 
they passed, and " after longe beating at sea they 
fell with that land which is called Cape Cod." 

" After some deliberation had amongst them- 
selves," Bradford writes, " and with the m"" of the 
ship, they tacked aboute and resolved to stande for 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 153 

the southward (the wind and weather being faire) 
to finde some place aboute Hudsons river for their 
habitation. But after they had sailed that course 
aboute halfe the day, they fell amongst deangerous 
shoulds and roring breakers, and they were so far 
intangled ther with as they conceived them selves in 
great denger; and the winde shrinking upon them 
withall, they resolved to bear up againe for the 
Cape and thought them selves hapy to gett out of 
those dangers before night overtooke them, as by 
God's providence they did. And the next day they 
gott into the Cape-harbor wher they ridd in saf- 
tie." The place of their " intanglements " was 
Champlain's Caj) Malleharre, the sandy point of 
Chatham, and that they weathered the Cape and 
made port without mishap is a credit to the seaman- 
ship of their captain. 

The great charm of the Bradford narrative is its 
simplicity. With few words he makes a perfect 
picture of the condition of the Pilgrim Company 
after their " tedious and dreadfull " journey. Hav- 
ing brought them within safe harbour, the historian 
permits himself the first break in his story, the first 
reflection upon the whole situation. " But here," he 
says, "I cannot but stay and make a pause, and 
stand half amased at this poore peoples presente 
condition ; and so I thinke will the reader too, when 



154 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

he well considers the same. Being thus passed the 
vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before in their 
preparation (as may be remembred by that which 
wente before) thej^ had now no friends to wellcome 
them, nor inns to entertaine or refresh their weath- 
erbeaten bodys, no houses or much less townes to 
repair too, to seeke for succoure .... And for the 
season it was winter, and they that know the winters 
of that cuntrie know them to be sharp and violent, 
and subject to cruell and feirce stormes, deangerous 
to travill to known places much more to serch an un- 
known coast. . . . If they looked behind them, ther 
was the mighty ocean which they had passed, and 
was now as a maine barr and goulf e to separate them 
from all the civill parts of the world. If it be said 
they had a ship to succour them, it is trew; but what 
heard they daly from the m'" and his comj)any? but 
that with speede they should looke out a place with 
their shallop, wher they would be at some near dis- 
tance; for the season was shuch as he would not stir 
from thence till a safe harbor was discovered by 
them wher they would be, and he might goe with- 
out danger; and that victells consumed apace, but 
he must and would keepe sufficient for them 
selves and their returne. Yea, it was muttered 
by some, that if they gott not a place in time, they 
would turne them and their goods ashore and 
leave them." 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 155 

Moiirt's Belaiions, published in 1622, in the 
interests of emigration, gives a hghter picture of the 
arrival, describing conditions most favourable — the 
commodious harbour, the wood and water in abun- 
dance close to the shore, the great store of fowl, the 
whales playing hard by which they lacked "instru- 
ments " to take, thus losing a fortune. And Mourt 
tells humorously of the great " muscles " which they 
found which were fat and full of sea pearl, but 
which made poor eating, causing them " to cast and 
to scoure" — he spares us no details! 

We come now to the Compact. The patent which 
the Pilgrims had from the London Company was 
for " Virginia," and they found themselves landing 
in New England, which belonged to another gov- 
ernment with which the Virginia Company had 
nothing to do. Now, as we understand from the 
occasional hints through the Bradford manuscript, 
the temper of the Pilgrims was not unmixed with 
mutiny and discontent, and so certain of the 
"strangers" amongst them — by which is meant 
those who had shipped at London and were not of 
the Leyden congregation — sought to take advan- 
tage of this technical change in the original plan 
and to boast that when they came ashore they would 
" use their owne libertie " and that " none had power 
to command them," 



156 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

This situation was promptly met by the leaders 
of the company, who drew up a paper which con- 
stituted the foundation of their government in this 
place. There were forty-one signers to the docu- 
ment, each man signing for his family and servants, 
and thus by mutual consent, says Mourt, " they en- 
tered into a solemn combination as a Body politick 
to submit to such government, and governors. Laws 
and ordinances as should by a general consent from 
time to time be made choice of and affected unto." 
The form of the Compact was as follows : 
" In the name of God, Amen. We whose names 
are under- written, the loyal subjects of our dread 
soveraigne Lord, King James, by the grace of God, 
of Great Britaine, Franc, and Ireland king, de- 
fender of the faith, etc., haveing undertaken, for 
the glorie of God, and advancemente of the Chris- 
tian faith, and honour of our king and countrie, a 
voyage to plant the first colonic in the Northerne 
parts of Virginia, doe by these presents solemnly 
and mutually in the presence of God, and one an- 
other, covenant and combine our selves togeather 
into a civill body politick, for our better ordering 
and preservation and furtherance of the ends afore- 
said ; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and 
frame sucli just and equall lawes, ordinances, acts, 
constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 157 

be thought most meete and convenient for the 
generall good of the Colonic, unto which we promise 
all due submission and obedience. In witness wher- 
of we have hereunder subscribed our names at Cap- 
Codd the 1 1 of November, in the year of the raigne 
of our soveraigne lord. King James, of England, 
France, and Ireland the eighteenth, and of Scot- 
land the fiftie fourth. An° :Dom. 1620." 

John Carver had been informally appointed 
governor of the May Flower when she sailed from 
England, so after the signing of the Compact his 
governorship was confirmed by the planters — all 
of which took place in the cabin of the May Flower 
in the harbour of Cape Cod, before any landed at 
Provincetown. 

The landing was a difficult business owing to the 
shallow water. Their shallop, stowed in the hold of 
the ship, was brought out, but required consider- 
able mending before it could be used ; so while the 
carpenters worked upon making it fit those who 
went ashore were obliged to wade back and forth 
from the vessel where she lay at anchor three quar- 
ters of a mile from the beach. The first concern of 
the women was to do their washing, which had ac- 
cumulated sadly during the long voyage, and a 
pond, where it is supposed they must have washed, 
from the banks in the good European fashion, was 



158 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

located at the foot of High Hill on Bradford 
Street — the site long since filled in by the en- 
croaching sand. 

While the shalloiD was under repair Captain 
Miles Standish, the military leader of the Pilgrims, 
with sixteen men armed with muskets, swords, and 
corslets, set out to explore the Cape with the hope 
of finding it suitable for settlement. William 
Bradford accompanied this expedition, as well as 
the several others that followed, so that his history 
presents the facts as seen by an eyewitness. 

They explored the Cape as far as the Pamet 
River, and of their adventures Mourt's Belations 
give a livelier descrii^tion. INIiles Standish, who is 
here mentioned for the first time in the Bradford 
history, was of Lancashire, a man of about thirty- 
five years at the time that he joined forces with the 
Pilgrims. He had served as a soldier in Holland 
during her war with Spain, and during the twelve 
years' truce had found the exiles at Ley den. As a 
practical soldier his methods were often at variance 
with the milder manners of Brewster, Bradford, 
and others of the leaders of the colony, but they 
depended upon him greatly to organize defence and 
to settle disputes with the Indians, which arose 
later. 

One imagines him rather eager in liis use of fire- 



/ 




"the pilgrims ox the MAYFLOWER. 

FROM THE DECORATION IN THE BOSTON STATE HOUSE 

BY HENRY OLIVER WALKER. 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 150 

arms, taking almost a childish pleasure in the equip- 
ment of his little battalion of sixteen men who set 
forth to explore the vast sand areas of Cape Cod. 
They had not gone far until they spied five or six 
savages with a dog — but these ran from them, and 
throughout the several days that were spent in in- 
vestigating the coast and interior of the Cape they 
never succeeded in meeting the natives, though 
they saw frequent evidence of their whereabouts. 

Bradford complains rather bitterly that the In- 
dians whom they met were readier " to fill their sids 
full of arrows than otherwise." But we have seen 
how simple, confiding, and hospitable were the 
natives whom Gosnold and his company encoun- 
tered at Cape Cod. There was every reason for 
this change of attitude. From Smith's narrative 
we learn that while himself and eight men explored 
the New England coast collecting material for the 
famous map and the book of his voyage, Thomas 
Hunt, the master of one of the ships of this ex- 
pedition, " dishonestly and inhumanely " kidnapped 
twenty-four savages, confined them on his ship, 
which was laden with fish for his employers, and set 
sail for Spain. At Malaga he disposed of his cargo 
of fish and on his own account sold the Indians for 
"rials of eight." This "vilde act," says Smith, 
kept him ever after from any more employment in 



160 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

these parts. This cruelty was fresh in the minds of 
the Cape Cod Indians, the abduction having oc- 
curred but six years previous to the landing of the 
Pilgrims, and their trust in foreign invaders was 
destroyed. Furthermore, the tradition was pre- 
served amongst this tribe, and upon it was founded 
the hatred of the white man, a hatred justified by 
every important step in their subsequent inter- 
course. 

The Pilgrims, it is true, were determined upon a 
course of scrupulous honesty in their dealings with 
the natives, and it is the boast of their annotators 
that the offensive and defensive alliance, made 
early in the days of their settlement between King 
Massasoit, the principal sachem of the Wampa- 
noags, and King James was faithfully kej^t for 
half a century. Yet was this peace founded upon 
mutual fear; and there is told a touching story of 
the mother of one of the kidnapped Indians trem- 
bling with terror at the sight of the Pilgrims. It 
occurred when they went to Nauset to recover the 
boy, John Billington, who had strayed from the 
settlement at Plymouth some months after arrival 
and who had been taken care of by the Cape Cod 
Indians. Mourt thus describes it: " One thing was 
very grievous to us at this place (Nauset). There 
was an old woman whom we judged to be no less 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 161 

than an hundred years old, which came to see us 
because shee never saw English, yet could not be- 
hold us without breaking forth into great passion, 
weeping and crying excessively. We demanding 
the reason of it they told us she had three sons who, 
when Master Hunt was in these parts, went aboord 
his ship to trade with him, and he carried them Cap- 
tives into Spaine, which means she was deprived of 
the comfort of her children in her old age." 

Though the intentions of the invaders were in 
the main good and honourable, according to their 
lights, yet several of their acts must have been 
otherwise interpreted by the savages. For instance, 
in their first expedition to the Pamet River they 
found buried under heaps of sand, " newly pad- 
dled" by Indian hands, several baskets filled with 
corn of different colors to which they helped them- 
selves, filling a great kettle which they found hard 
by, and this they carried back to the ship, feeling 
" marvelusly glad and their harts incouraged." 

The second exj^edition was made to the same 
place in the shallop which was now ready; it con- 
sisted of thirty men commanded by the master of 
the ship. They sailed to the mouth of the Pamet 
River, which they called Cold Harbour, landing 
their men at Old Tom's Hill, and from thence 
marched inland several miles to the place where 



162 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

they had found the corn and which they named 
Corn-hill. The weather had changed since their 
first visit and they found the place covered with 
snow and hard frozen, so that in order to make a 
systematic raid upon the Indians' store they were 
obliged " to hew and carve the ground" with their 
cutlasses and short swords and then " to wrest it up 
with levers." This time they secured, all told, about 
ten bushels of corn and beans with which they 
loaded their boat, looking upon the whole incident 
with cheerful egoism as " God's good providence," 
and never questioning the owners' need for the com- 
ing season's planting, but promising themselves to 
make the Indians " large satisfaction " at the first 
opportunity. They made good their word the fol- 
lowing summer, as Bradford carefully records in 
liis narrative. 

Their most interesting and romantic discovery 
was of a grave, unusually large and covered at some 
distance below the surface with a board, finely 
canned and painted with "three tines or broaches." 
The idea understood by this description is that 
something like a trident was carved on the board 
suggesting some nautical association with the grave. 
The explorers did not scruple to dig up and exam- 
ine the contents. Carefully laid between mats and 
wrapped in separate envelopes they found the re- 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 163 

mains of a man and a child. The bodies had been 
embahned with a great quantity of aromatic red 
powder, which exhaled a strong but not offensive 
odor. The man's body had been bound up in a 
sailor's canvas "casacke" (a coarse frock or blouse) 
and a pair of cloth breeches. There remained the 
skull and bones, judged to be of a European be- 
cause of the fine light hair still adhering to the skull, 
to which was attached also some unconsumed flesh. 
The baby had been laden with strings and bracelets 
of fine white beads, and the grave was filled with 
"bowls, trays, dishes, and such like trinkets" — per- 
haps originally filled with food to sustain the de- 
parted on his last voyage, according to the primitive 
custom — and beside each body was a bow^ — ^a big 
one for the man and for the child a little bow, " about 
three quarters long." "We brought some of the 
prettiest things away with us, and covered the 
corpse up again," says the relation; and after this 
no more corn was found, but only graves. 

Many conjectures were made to account for the 
interment, with evident ceremony, of a European. 
But for the blond hair some would have thought it 
the grave of a sachem ; others speculated that a Chris- 
tian of some note must have died amongst the In- 
dians and been buried by them ; while later scholars 
have surmised that this might have been the relic of 



164 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

some early Norse visitor. About three years before 
the arrival of the Pilgrims at Cape Cod a French 
ship had been cast away at this place; the men got 
ashore and saved most of their cargo and stores. 
The savages, however, seeing in these unfortunate 
castaways an opportunity to wreak their vengeance 
for the wrong that Hunt had done them but re- 
cently, captured the Frenchmen, and killing all but 
three or four — so runs the story — used the survi- 
vors " worse than slaves." We hear of one who re- 
mained amongst them and died in their company, 
prophesying dire calamity for the tribes that had 
persecuted him and his associates. It has been 
thought that this might have been the grave of this 
Frenchman. 

The Pilgrim detachment thought well of the 
locality of the Pamet River and thought seriously 
of recommending it for settlement. It presented 
many advantages, and the matter of settling began 
to be pressing since the unseasonable weather had 
come, and cold and wet lodging had " tainted " the 
people, scarce any of whom were free of " vehement 
coughs." 

In this very expedition they seem to have en- 
countered the sudden transition from Indian sum- 
mer to full-fledged winter for which oin* climate is 
famous. We read that the spray lighting on their 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 165 

coats froze instantly so that they were incased in 
ice as in coats of mail, and that many took " the 
original of their death here." 

JNIeanwhile on the May Flower things were 
scarcely better ; the vessel lay at anchor within Long 
Point a})out three quarters of a mile from the shore, 
and owing to the flats, still characteristic of this har- 
bour, it was impossible for a small boat to reach the 
beach except at high tide. Impatience could not 
brook this impediment, and there was much wading 
back and forth through the icy water, either for 
pleasure or necessity, which brought many down 
with colds and coughs, which afterwards, says Brad- 
ford, " turned to scurvey whereof many dyed." 

Weighing the advantages of the Pamet River 
section against its disadvantages, upon the advice 
of Robert Coppin, the " pilot " of the May Flower, 
it was decided to investigate farther within the bay 
in search of a great navigable river and good har- 
bour in its other headland. 

Upon the return of the expedition to prepare for 
this third venture they found that Mistress White 
had been "brought to bed of a sonne, which was 
called Peregrine." Peregrine White enjoyed the 
distinction of being the flrst of the English colonists 
born in New England. His father died in the stress 
of the first winter, and in the following May Ed- 



166 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

ward Winslow, whose wife also had succumbed, 
married his widow, so that Peregrine was raised in 
the Winslow family. He lived to the age of eighty- 
three years and died at jNIarshfield, July 20, 1704, 
of " vigorous and comely aspect to the last." 

But now trouble was to begin in earnest. While 
the third expedition was absent upon the discovery 
of Plymouth, there were four deaths on the May 
Flotcer, including the tragic accident that befell 
Dorothy JNIay, the first wife of William Bradford, 
who " fell overboard and was drowned " on Decem- 
ber 7. Bradford himself in his history does not 
mention the incident. This has been put down to 
characteristic modesty and self-effacement rather 
than to indifference. Prince culled the simple fact 
from Bradford's Pocket Book, to which he had 
access, and preserved it in his New England 
Chronology. 

Neither does Bradford mention his marriage to 
Alice Southworth upon the arrival of the Ann, in 
August, 1623. She was the widow of Edward 
Southworth, and tradition says that Bradford had 
courted her as Alice Carpenter before her marriage, 
and the story is supported by the fact that he sent 
out for her soon after the death of her husband, 
asking her to become his wife. But we must not 
exaggerate the romance of marriage amongst the 



THE MAY FLOWER'S VOYAGE 167 

colonials. The exigencies of a pioneer existence 
did not admit of dreams — the colony had to be 
peopled, and marriage was a practical step towards 
that end. 



CHAPTER VIII 
THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 

Plymouth was discovered by the third expedi- 
tion from the Maij Flotccr, which set out on the 
sixth of December, in the shallop, carrj^ing ten of 
the princi2)al j^lanters and a number of the ship's 
crew and seamen. The "pilot," Robert Coppin, 
was the leader of the party, having been here be- 
fore and having some knowledge of the harbour of 
Plymouth, situated about twenty-five miles distant 
by an air line from where the Mai/ Flower lay at 
the head of Provincetown Harbour. Standing on 
Cole's Hill, in Plymouth, on very clear nights, one 
can make out distinctly the flash of the Highland 
Light at Truro, over across and beyond the bay, and 
by daylight, remembering the direction, it is easy 
to fancy the course by which, "circulating the bay," 
their shallop must have come. 

With Coppin came John Carver, William Brad- 
ford, Edward Winslow, INIiles Standish, John 
Howland, Richard Warren, Stephen Hopkins, Ed- 
ward Tilly, John Tilly, and Edward Doten, of the 

168 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 169 

Pilgrim planters, John Allerton and Thomas Eng- 
lish, both hired as seamen — the latter to go as 
master of the shallop, Bradford tells us — John 
Clark, the first mate of the Maij Floxver, the master 
gunner of the ship, and three seamen. 

Their first landing was at Eastham, where they 
spent the first night. In the morning they divided 
their company, some going by land and the re- 
mainder in the shallop, coasting the shore, but they 
found no place to their liking and, joining forces 
again, spent the second night in the vicinity of Brew- 
ster or Orleans, and this j^lace they called the first 
encounter for here they were attacked suddenly by 
the Indians at daybreak, as the Englishmen were 
coming from the shallop to breakfast, having left 
their arms upon the beach. Between Mourt and 
Bradford we get a spirited picture of this en- 
counter. There was a great and strange cry from 
the natives, a rush of an outpost with the warning 
"Indians! Indians!" and a shower of arrows fly- 
ing amongst them. The English flew to recover 
their arms, gaining them unharmed, two muskets 
were discharged to delay the foe while others of the 
attacked ran out wearing coats of mail and, with 
cutlasses in their hands, soon stopped the fray. 

The skirmish was short and sharp. What chiefly 
impressed the Pilgrims seems to have been the war 



170 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

whoops of the Indians which they heard for the first 
time. One of their historians attempts to repro- 
duce the sound: "Their note was after this man- 
ner," he says, " Woach, woacli, ha hacJi tvoach " ; but 
a scholar seriously attempting to make something 
intelligible of it finds no accord between these words 
and the Indian dialects of his acquaintance! One 
" lustie " man stood behind a tree within half a 
musket shot of the party and let his arrows fly at 
them. He was seen to shoot three arrows and stood 
an equal number of musket shots, but one " taking 
full aime at him " splintered the tree behind which 
he stood, at which " he gave an extraordinary 
shrike, and away they wente all of them." 

The Pilgrims struck into Plymouth Harbour at 
night and in the thick of very foul weather; they 
had broken their rudder and had all they could do 
to steer with a couple of oars ; hoisting more sail in 
an endeavour to make the harbour by daylight, they 
had broken their mast in three pieces and lost their 
sail overboard in a very " grown sea," but by luck 
and the favour of the tide managed to make an en- 
trance, though in very bad order. The pilot seems 
to have lost his head, not recognizing the place, but 
a young seaman, who steered the boat, with great 
presence of mind seeing that the mate would have 
run the boat ashore in a cove full of breakers, before 




Copyright, A. S. Burbank, Plymouth, Mas 



EDWARD WINSI-OW, FROM AN OLD PORTRAIT 
IN PILGRIM HALL, PLYMOUTH. 



THE riLGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 171 

the wind, shouted directions to the oarsmen to put 
her about and to row lustily for their lives. So in 
the inky blackness and heavy rain they found land, 
and stood the night in the Ice of what proved next 
morning to be a small ishmd. 

The morning broke clear and fine and the first 
man to step ashore was the mate, John Clark, and 
the island was called for him, Chirk's Island. Ow- 
ing to the fact that Plymouth is still largely peo- 
])led with the descendants of the first settlers there 
are many interesting traditions preserved in the 
town. One of these is that Edward Dotey or 
Doten (the name is written both ways), a young 
man, was about to leap first upon the island, but 
was restrained to give preference to the mate of 
the 3/(7// Floxccr. that he might have the honour of 
taking possession and naming the island. This 
story, Thatcher tells us, was handed down through 
the Doten family and is well authenticated. 

The enclosed body of water known, according to 
location under the several names — Ph^llouth Har- 
bour, Plymouth Bay, and Duxbury Bay — pre- 
sents several interesting features. Fully one half 
of it is protected by the unusually curving main- 
land wliich constitutes its western and northern 
bou!idary. From its southern limit, at the mouth 
of the Eel Biver, a rapid tidal stream which forms 



172 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

the outlet of Great Pond, it is enclosed by a narrow 
strip of beach, or tongue of land, formerly well 
wooded, which shoots out in spitlike form to meet 
Saquish, the extremity of a still more singular for- 
mation of land. Saquish has its origin in Duxbury 
Beach, a narrow neck of sand that projects at right 
angles to the mainland at the north end of the har- 
bour — called here Duxburj'^ Bay — the whole 
formed somewhat like a boot, with the heel forming 
the Gurnet and the toe, Saquish. At the Gurnet 
where stand the twin lights of the government, the 
peninsula turns abruptly in the form of a right 
angle and a thin, sandy strip of beach connects the 
Gurnet with the headland of Saquish, which points 
directly towards Plymouth town. 

The theory is that Saquish, at the time of the 
Landing, was also an island, since both the Pil- 
grims and Champlain, who had visited this spot 
only a few years earlier, described two fine islands 
within the harbour. At all events, even to this day 
Saquish appears like an island, viewed from the 
mainland, owing to its peculiar setting, at right 
angles to the Gurnet's "nose." Within the angle 
lies Clark's Island. 

The entrance to the liarbour is between Saquish 
and " The Beach " as Plymouth calls the narrow 
strip that bounds the eastern rim of the harbour 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 173 

proper. In the middle of the way lies Brown's Is- 
land Shoal, supposed also once to have been an is- 
land answering to the descriptions of various early 
navigators. 

The Pilgrims landed on Clark's Island on a Sat- 
urday, spent the day there in drying their clothes 
and goods and cleaning their firearms, and the fol- 
lowing day refrained from exploration, remaining 
quietly upon the island, secure from the Indians, 
in celebration of the Sabbath. 

The following day, JNIonday, December 11, or 21 
according to the altered calendar, they set forth in 
their shallop, sounded the harbour, which they 
found fit for shipping, and made their memorable 
Landing upon Plymouth Rock. They marched 
into the land, finding it uninhabited, full of running 
brooks of fresh water, and with plenty of cleared 
ground ; so being in haste to report to the others the 
good tidings of successful discovery, they set sail 
without more ado for Cape Cod, bearing this time 
across the mouth of the great bay to Provincetown, 
a distance of only about twenty-five or twenty-six 
miles. 

In four days' time the May Flower had weighed 
anchor and started on her voyage to Plymouth, and 
by the sixteenth of the month she had anchored in 
the harbour, just inside the end of the Beach. For 



174 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

more than three months now had the httle vessel 
been the Pilgrims' home, yet so brave are the ac- 
counts of the historians that we can only conjecture 
what their sufferings must have been. Disease and 
death had already begun to ravage the company, 
that before six months' time was to be reduced to 
half. Besides a seaman and a passenger who had 
died at sea, four deaths had occurred in Cape Cod 
Harbour, and before the end of December, while 
the company was still constrained to make the ves- 
sel its headquarters, two more of the company — 
Richard Bitterige and Solomon ISIartin — suc- 
cumbed in Plymouth Harbour, making six deaths 
in the one month. 

The name, May Flower, has so cheery a sound, 
so springlike a flavour, and the descendants of tlie 
first comers whom one meets in a casual way and 
far afield seem so gleefully boastful of their con- 
nection with this fateful vessel, that I wonder if 
any besides historians or specialists in the subject 
realize the horrible pathos of these " hard and diffi- 
culte beginnings." Surely these were not men to 
found fashionable or chic society — not men to be 
flippantly or snobbishly claimed as " desirable " an- 
cestors. Their social desirability, in the worldly 
sense, was the least of their qualifications. Even as 
pioneers thej' make but frail contrast to the men 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 175 

of brawn and muscle that, with more of that true 
spirit of adventure, have opened the West. Their 
appeal is all on the spiritual plane, theirs was the 
sacred fire of fanaticism — that curious fact in 
human nature which leads certain types to endure 
every form of physical torture rather than belie 
conscience or yield an ideal, rather than to conform 
to something in which they do not believe. 

These men, it should be remembered, were not 
typical Englishmen. They were picked men both 
morally and intellectually — in a word they were 
men of character. In common with the Puritans 
who settled the Massachusetts colony, most of 
them could read and write, some of them were men 
of education, while the mass of their countrymen 
were wholly illiterate. 

The urge within them was something far 
stronger than themselves. "Through their early 
days of cold and hunger, of toil and discourage- 
ment," says Cotton Mather, " the Plymouth Pil- 
grims were not merely striving to win an inheri- 
tance for themselves and their children — they were 
laying the foundations of New England." Yet so 
busy were they about the practical details of exis- 
tence during the first years of the colony that I 
doubt if any stopped to philosophize upon the plat- 
form upon which they stood — it was a case of in- 



176 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

cessantly doing the thing at hand, of satisfying the 
need of the hour. 

The very Compact, upon which so much stress 
has been laid, as the source and foundation of all 
the democratic institutions of America, as the basis 
of our republic, was purely an impromptu measure 
of expediency, framed to meet the exigencies of a 
moment unforeseen when the party sailed from 
England. Yet this brief, comprehensive, and simple 
instrument established a most important principle 
— that the mil of the majority of the people shall 
govern. This was bold doctrine in this age of des- 
potism and superstition. So they crossed no bridges 
before they came to them, but met each situation as 
it arose. 

The first encounter with the natives had its great 
effect upon the Pilgrims. So impressed were they 
by the hostility of the A^ausets that they were at 
first inclined to make their settlement upon Clark's 
Island in the bay, despite the many inconveniences 
of an island location, because of its comparative 
security from invasion. The shores of the Jones 
River, at Kingston, also attracted them, and they 
spent some time in weighing the various merits of 
these localities before deciding upon the superiority 
of Plymouth itself. 

Happily for them, in one sense, that taking 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 177 

possession of the mainland at this spot was but an 
empty form, entailing no sort of conquest. They 
found the country quite free of Indians, though 
there was every evidence of recent habitation. The 
plague had cleared the way for them, that terrible 
forerunner of the English that swept the coast from 
the Fresh Water River to the Penobscot with a 
violence that wiped out villages, destroyed tribes, 
leaving desolation in its wake. 

The cleared corn fields at Plymouth, ready to the 
hands of the English, spoke eloquently of the re- 
cent habitation of Patiiccet — the Indian name of 
the A^illage so lately depopulated. It seems curious 
that the colonists saw nothing sinister in settling 
upon a place so recently visited by wholesale devas- 
tation, but set to work to build upon the graves, 
seeing in the circumstance nothing of the reverse of 
the picture, but only God's providence to them- 
selves. 

The history of this plague has yet to be written 
— certainly it was an important factor in the peace- 
able settlement of Plymouth as well as of Salem 
and Boston. Sir Ferdinand Gorges relates that 
the Indians near the mouth of the Saco, in INIaine, 
were sorely afflicted with this mysterious malady, 
" so that the coimtry was in a manner left void of 
inhabitants." Christopher liCvett, who visited the 



178 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

northern coast of New England in 1623, found the 
same desolation at " Aquamenticus "; and Thomas 
Dermer, writing of his discoveries near INIonhegan, 
in 1619, speaks of finding along the coast some 
" antient Plantations, not long since populous now 
utterly void" while in other places remnants re- 
mained, of which many were affected by the dis- 
ease by which all the rest had died. This pestilence 
swept New England early in 1617, slaying it is be- 
lieved more than half the Indian population be- 
tween the Penobscot River and Narragansett Bay. 
The Indians had never seen its like before and 
with easy credulity were persuaded that the plague 
was a weapon held at the disposal of the white man, 
who had power to let it loose upon the savages in 
revenge for wrongs committed against them. 
Shortly before the outbreak of the pestilence had 
occurred the wreck of the French vessel upon the 
coast of Cape Cod, referred to in the last chapter. 
Of the three survivors of the Indians' slaughter of 
the crew, all of whom got ashore, two were re- 
deemed by Dermer, as related in his account of his 
voyage, written for Samuel Purchas. The third 
lived amongst the Indians until he learned their 
language. He told them that God would punish 
them for their wickedness and would destroy them 
and give their country to another people. They 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 179 

laughed at his prophecy, saying that they were so 
strong and so numerous that they could not be de- 
stroyed ; but after the Frenchman's death came the 
plague, apparently in fulfilment of his words, and 
close upon that the arrival of the English to settle 
their country, so that they were at last convinced, 
and regarded the whites with suspicious awe. 

The Pilgrims had the story of the plague and 
many details of the former settlement of Patuxet 
from Samoset, an Indian from the Island of 
Monhegan, off the coast of Maine, who walked 
suddenly into the camp of the first comers at Plym- 
outh in the month of INIarch, succeeding their ar- 
rival, and startled them by extending a welcome 
from the savages in excellent English! 

Though they had for a long time seen Indians 
skulking about, as they expressed it, Samoset was 
the first with whom they had intercourse. Samoset 
is described as a tall, straight man with a confident 
and friendly bearing. He wore upon the occasion 
of his visit only a leather belt about his waist from 
which depended a fringe, " about a span long or a 
little more." 

Samoset appears to have been sent by Massasoit, 
grand sacliem of the Wampanoags, as an envoy to 
test the temper of the newcomers, and some of the 
more romantic of the historians would have us be- 



180 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

lieve that the Indians decided upon a course of 
friendship) with the whites, only after their utmost 
endeavours to destroy them by curses, execrations, 
and conjurations had signally failed. Bradford 
himself relates that before they came to the Eng- 
lish to make friends that they had assembled " all 
the Powachs of the cuntrie, for 3 days togeather, in 
a horid and divellish maner to curse and execrate 
them with their conjurations, which assembly and 
service they held in a darke and dismale swampe." 

Had the English been superstitious they might 
well have traced their ill luck of the first months to 
some antagonistic influence. The rigours of the first 
winter reduced the Plymouth Colony to one-half the 
number that sailed from England. The year 1621 
was ushered in with the death of Degory Priest, 
and before January was out eight had been added 
to the death toll, including Rose Standish, the wife 
of the military leader of the company. During the 
following month, when the scourge was at its 
height, two or three sometimes died in a day. At 
this time there were but six or seven sound persons 
in the whole community — Bradford was affected, 
and the burden of the nursing seems to have fallen 
upon Elder Brewster and Miles Standish. These 
" with abundance of toyle and hazard of their owne 
health, fetched them woode, made them fires, drest 




I'lLGKlM MEKKSTKAUS ALO.NCI TOWN HKOUK. 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 181 

them meat, made their beads, washed their loath- 
some cloathes, cloathed and imcloathed them; in a 
word, did all the homly and necessarie offices for 
them which dainty and quesie stomacks cannot en- 
dure to hear named." 

Meanwhile some small progress had been made 
towards the building of the town. The company 
was divided into nineteen families to simplify mat- 
ters and to reduce the number of houses needed. 
The single men were a2:)portioned amongst the 
families. The site of the original town was Leyden 
Street, which skirts the foot of Cole's Hill, where 
during that first dread winter, the Pilgrims buried 
their dead. The plan was to build the houses in two 
rows for more safety, and, for perfect justice, lots 
were in proportion to the number included in the 
family, each person being allowed about four hun- 
dred square feet. Locations were settled by draw- 
ing lots. 

The first houses were built on the south side of 
Leyden Street where the lots ran down to the Town 
Brook and the gardens had a sunny exposure. An 
unfinished plan of the street is treasured in the 
Registry of Deeds amongst the old records of the 
colony. Elder Brewster's plot is now occupied by 
the Post Office and Custom House, and the public 
fountain at the corner of this handsome edifice is a 



182 A LOITERER IX XEW EXGLAXD 

glorified edition of the original Pilgrim Spring on 
the Brewster meerstead, which gushes abundantly 
at its source near the bank of the Town Brook and 
is carried by electric power to its present monu- 
mental setting. 

A tablet upon an old house which stands just 
below the junction of Carver and Leyden Street 
marks the site of the Common House, the first 
building erected by the Pilgrims. They started on 
Christmas Day and, as it w^as a rough log house 
with a thatched roof, it soon furnished accommoda- 
tion and served as hospital to the disabled colony. 
While many lay ill there in January, the thatched 
roof caught fire and w^as burned, adding further 
misery to the condition of the colonists. 

When spring came the Pilgrims bravely levelled 
off the fifty graves on Cole's Hill and planted corn 
in order to conceal from the Indians the depletion 
of their colony. In some cases families were sadly 
reduced by the epidemic w^hich spread amongst 
them. The famous Priscilla, who later married 
John Alden, was sole sun^ivor of her family; for 
Bradford records that William Molines, his wife, 
son, and servant — Robert Carter — died in the first 
winter. Governor Carver and his wife died within 
the year, and it is supposed were buried on Cole's 
Hill, but no stone marked the site of the grave. 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 183 

John Carver lived however to sign the famous 
treaty with IMassasoit, the sachem of the adjoining 
trihe, whose messenger Samoset was. Now Samo- 
set was himself a sagamore or sachem from Monhe- 
gan, in INIaine, as we said, and had learned English 
from the British fishermen who came yearly to his 
country, many of whom he knew hy name. He 
"discoursed of the whole country," informed the 
Pilgrims of the great plague which had depopu- 
lated their present ahiding place so utterly that of 
all the natives of Patuxet there was but one survi- 
vor, Squanto or Tisquantum, who owed his escape 
to Hunt, having been captured by that scoundrel 
with a score of the Pokanokets and other of the 
Nauset tribe, and borne away to England. 

The Pokanokets had once occupied all the region 
between the Narragansetts and the Massachusetts 
and had been sufficiently powerful to hold their 
own against both. Tradition says that at one time 
this tribe could muster three thousand warriors. 

Squanto's experiences had alienated him from his 
kind. Some of the Indians whom Hunt carried to 
^Malaga were seized by the priests and converted, 
others were sold into slavery. Exactly what hap- 
pened to Squanto is not known, but he was for a 
time a member of the household of John Slany, a 
London merchant dwelling in Cheapside. Slany 



184 A LOITERER lA^ NEW ENGLAND 

was treasurer of the Newfoundland plantation, 
where Squanto seems to have been sent, for in 1615 
Captain Dermer, an explorer for Sir Ferdinand 
Gorges, found him there. Dermer found the trav- 
elled Indian useful as a guide and interpreter and 
retained him in his employ for several years. Mean- 
while Squanto never ceased to extoll the virtues of 
his native country and in 1619 succeeded in per- 
suading Dermer to explore this region ; they set out 
in one of Gorges' vessels bound for INIaine and 
coasted along the shore to Plymouth. Squanto, 
after five years' absence, found his birthplace void 
— his friends, relatives, and countrymen all dead. 

So, having lived so long amongst Englishmen, 
and finding himself sole survivor of his tribe, 
Squanto felt more at home with the settlers than 
amongst his fellows. Samoset brought him upon 
his third visit to the colonists at Plymouth, and 
he remained with them, serving as indispensable 
interpreter and guide for twenty months, until 
his death, in November, 1622, while piloting an 
expedition to the south coast of Cape Code in 
search of supplies. 

The two Indians, Samoset and Squanto, came as 
advance guard to the great sagamore, INIassasoit, 
who with his brother, Quadequina, and all their 
men, numbering about sixty attendants, waited at a 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 185 

discreet distance. In about an hour, so says the 
narrative, these dignitaries appeared at the top of a 
hill, and Edward Winslow was chosen as the Pil- 
grims' emissary to parley with them. There was an 
amusing interchange of formalities. Winslow bore 
gifts to the king — a pair of knives, a copper chain 
with a jewel in it, and to Quadequina " a knife and 
a jewel to hang in his ear." The colonists also sent 
a pot of strong water, a good quantity of biscuits, 
and some butter — all of which were graciously ac- 
cepted. The messenger made a speech saluting the 
Indian chief in the name of King James with words 
of love and peace, accepting him as his friend and 
ally. 

Massasoit, when the speech was interpreted to 
him, expressed himself as much impressed, and leav- 
ing Winslow in the custody of Quadequina, crossed 
the brook with twenty men. Captain Standish and 
Allerton met the king at the brook with half a 
dozen musketeers, saluted him and escorted him in 
style to one of the houses then in process of erec- 
tion, where the planters had improvised a sort of 
throne to which Governor Carver was conducted 
ceremoniously with drum and trumpet and a few 
musketeers. The governor kissed the hand of the 
Indian chief, Massasoit kissed him, and so they sat 
them down upon a green rug and several cushions, 



18(5 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

with what pomp their hniited resources could com- 
niaiid. 

Massasoit was described as not differing greatly 
from the others of his tribe, except that his face was 
painted a "sad red" which means a deep colour, 
like the juice of the mulberry. This dark red was a 
princely colour amongst the Indians. The others 
were variously painted, and adorned rather than 
dressed with handsome skins. 

A treaty of peace was concluded between ^lassa- 
soit. the chief of the Wampanoags and Governor 
Carver of the Plymouth Colony which was mutually 
respected for over fifty years. This was April 1, 
1621. Three days later Governor Carver died 
suddenly of sunstroke and William Bradford was 
chosen his successor, the second governor of the 
Plynunith Colony. 

Squanto's coming to the colony was providential. 
He showed the first comers where to take their lish, 
how to set their corn, served as pilot in their expedi- 
tions, acted as interpreter in their subsequent deal- 
ings with his countrymen and in a thousand ways 
proved a useful and indispensable member of the 
little comnnmity. AVlien he first came amongst 
them food was running very short and one of the 
first things recorded of him is that he went " at 
noone to fish for eeles," coming home at night with 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYIMOUTII 187 

as many as he could lift with one hand. " They 
were fat and sweet," says the narrative, " He trod 
them out with his feete and so caught them with his 
hands, without any other instrument." 

The Indians' invariahle rule for planting corn 
was when the leaves of the oak were the size of a 
mouse's ear. They manured the ground with the 
alewives found in ahundance in the Town Brook at 
the spawning season as they rushed to the breeding 
grounds in the Billington Sea. Their cooking was 
very simple — Indian corn broken or boiled they 
called nausarnp or samp; nokekikc or nokahe was 
powdered dried corn, it formed their chief diet 
when hunting and they ate it quite simply prepared 
by mixing it with a little water; corn pounded to 
meal and boiled they called hominy, while succotash 
was also a dish of their invention, consisting of corn 
and beans boiled together. 

With the advance of spring and the coming of 
summer the plight of the first comers lightened — 
the Indians had been met and dealt with, death had 
taken its toll, crops were good and the Pilgrims be- 
gan to take heart. The first marriage in the colony 
was on INIay 12, when two of the bereaved joined 
forces after a brief period of mourning. These 
were Edward AVinslow whose wife Elizabeth had 
died on March 24, and Susanna White, who had 



188 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

been left a widow somewhat earlier. Theirs was a 
civil marriage, accor(lin<>- to the conscientious belief 
of the Pilgrims, founded upon the example of the 
Low Countries in which they had lived. 

Early in April, with brave hearts the remnant of 
the colony dismissed the May Flotccr, which had 
stood by them all this time in the harbour, fur- 
nishing constant shelter. They were without the 
support of a ship, which meant a link with the old 
world, or any communication from the land they 
had left until the following November, when the 
Fortune sailed into the harbour bringing Robert 
Cushman, as an emissary from the adventurers, and 
thirty-five planters, mostly young men, physically 
fit, but wild fellows according to Bradford, bent 
upon adventure little considering " wliither or 
aboute what they wente, till they came into the 
harbore at Cap-Codd, and ther saw nothing but a 
naked and barren place," when they were much 
concerned about the safety of their own skins. 

They brought nothing but their strength into the 
colony — neither food, bedding, nor provisions of 
any kind, so that the colonists had much ado to 
accommodate them. They did bring, however, a 
hateful letter addressed to the late governor, John 
Carver, full of com])laints of the colony, especially 
because the planters had kept the May Flotccr so 



THE PILGRIMS AT PIAMOUTH 189 

long in the country, only to send her back without 
a cargo. With this letter was sent a charter or 
patent from the President and Council of Xew 
England, dated June 1, 1G21, issued to John Pierce 
and his associates. The jjatent which the Pilgrims 
brought over with them from the London Com- 
pany was surrendered, but the new charter is 
jDreserved in Pilgrim Hall at Plymouth. 

The planters freighted the Fortune with clap- 
boards and beaver and otter skins, valued at about 
.£500. It was to Squanto again that they owed the 
furs, for Bradford explains with some spirit that 
none of the Pilgrims ever saw a beaver skin until 
the Indian had showed them. ]Mr. Cushman suc- 
ceeded in his mission; he delivered in the common 
house an address, usually referred to as a sermon, 
to induce the colonists to sign the contract. This 
they did and the emissary bore it away with him, 
returning to England in the Fortune, which sailed 
again after but fourteen days at Plymouth. 

Robert Cushman performed one valuable service 
for literature; he carried with him back to England 
the manuscript of the journal of the colonists, 
** writ," as he says in his preface to the first publica- 
tion of the manuscript, " by the several actors 
themselves, after their plain and rude manner." 

Though shrouded in a thin veil of anonymity, so 



190 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

little doubt has ever been felt as to the identity of 
the writers of this delightfully intimate diary of the 
first year of the Pilgrim settlement, that it is com- 
monly known under the title of Bradford and 
Winslow's Journal. These were the only practised 
writers amongst the colonists. Cushman evidently 
carried it to England on his return trip in the For- 
tune as part of his answer to the merchant adven- 
turers as to the good faith of the colonists, and 
these, seeing in its colourful style and romantic 
narration the best of material for inducing new 
emigrants to offer themselves to the waiting colony, 
in whose success they had so decided a pecuniary 
interest, simply took it and published it without 
consulting the writers. 

It first appeared under the title of Mourfs Be- 
lations, in 1622, and was issued by John Bellamie 
at the sign of the Two Greyhounds, in Cornhill, 
near the Royal Exchange. It was prefaced by a 
letter signed R. G., confidently attributed to 
Robert Cushman — misprints were frequent in 
those days — and addressed to " his much respected 
friend, Mr. I. P.," supposed to be John Pierce of 
London, in whose name the first patent of the 
colony was taken. " G. IMourt," the avowed sponsor, 
is clearly a nom de plume, since there is no record 
of such a person; and George JNIorton, who came 




ANCIENT HOME OF MAJOR WILLIAM BRADFORD AT KINGSTON, 
FROM WHICH THE BRADFORD MANUSCRIPT WAS TAKEN. 



HOLMES HOUSE, PLYMOUTH. 
OF THE OLDEST HOUSES IN 
PLYMOUTH. 




THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 191 

over in the Ann in the following year, seems the 
likeliest person to have undertaken the publication, 
as he was already interested in the colony. Mourt 
would be either an abbreviation or corruption of 
his name or an error due to illegible handwriting. 

So far as it goes Mourt' s Relations, which has the 
freshness of a journal written from day to day, is 
a more racy account of Pilgrim history than the 
sober Bradford manuscript. Of Plimoth Planta- 
tion, which, however, carries the annals from the 
inception of the colony down to 1647. 

The immense importance of the Bradford nar- 
rative as an historic document is, however, greatly 
enhanced by the extraordinary adventures of the 
manuscript itself, of which all trace was lost during 
a j^eriod of more than an hundred years. 

This valuable record of the early history of the 
Plymouth Colony, written in the neat, decorative 
hand of the governor, after an adventurous career, 
of which but few details are known, is now restored 
to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and treas- 
ured in the office of the Secretary in the State 
Capitol, at Boston. 

It is extraordinary that so Important a document 
relative to the beginnings of a nation should have 
remained in manuscript form for more than two 
hundred years. Bradford prepared it with the ut- 



192 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

most care and fidelity to fact. He began to tran- 
scribe it from his notes about the year 1630, and 
there is in its make-up a consistency that seems to 
argue that its composition flowed along contin- 
uously throughout the subsequent years until it 
breaks off at the end of the year 1646 — the work 
was evidently left unfinished. Bradford must fully 
have realized its importance — its deserved destiny ; 
yet it remained but a family heirloom until the 
generation of his great-grandson, who, as the pen- 
man of the family, inscribed the manuscript in 1705 
with its simple pedigree. Under the date of JNIarch 
20 of that year Samuel Bradford attests that it was 
given by the governor to his son, Major William 
Bradford, and by him to his son. Major John 
Bradford. 

Later in a different hand is a memorandum dated 
June 4, 1728, stating how Thomas Prince obtained 
the manuscript from JNIajor John Bradford. At 
this time John Bradford gave Prince several man- 
uscript octavos written in the governor's own hand. 
The famous manuscript had been lent to Judge 
Sewall, and Prince was directed to get it from him 
and to use what he wished for his New England 
Chronology, after which he was authorized by John 
Bradford to deposit the history in the New Eng- 
land Library of Prints and Manuscripts, which 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 193 

Prince had been collecting for a number of years, 
asking only that he (Bradford) "might have ye 
perusal of it while he lived." 

Nathaniel Morton had had access to the manu- 
script using it freely in the preparation of his New 
Englaiid's Memorial, published in Cambridge, in 
1669 — in a preface addressed to " Thomas Prence," 
the governor of the colony at this time, the author 
freely confesses to have " borrowed much " from his 
uncle, "Mr. William Bradford, and such manu- 
scripts as he left in his study." Prince and Gov- 
ernor Hutchinson had both quoted the manuscript 
as authority for some of their writings on the sub- 
ject of the Pilgrim settlement and history, so that 
it was well known to all students of our early an- 
nals that such a manuscript had existed. 

Prince kept the choicest treasures of the New 
England Library, which he was collecting, in the 
tower of the Old South Church, in Boston, and it 
was here that the precious manuscript was sup- 
posed to have lodged during the siege of Boston, 
when, as is well known, the British soldiers used 
that church as a riding school. Amongst the con- 
tents of the library missing from the tower after the 
evacuation of the British was Governor Bradford's 
Letter Book. This was carried to Nova Scotia and 
turned up some years later in a grocery shop in 



194 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Halifax, where its leaves were being used as 
wrapping paper. John Clark, a corresponding 
member of the ^lassachusetts Historical Society 
rescued the relic at page 339 of its dispersion, and 
the fragment — "the preceding pages wanting" — 
was published in 1810. 

It was supposed that the Bradford manuscript 
had shared the fate of the Letter Book and of other 
documents totally destroyed, and all hope of its 
recovery had been abandoned — when suddenly, in 
1855 a scholar delving into the history of the Prot- 
estant Episcopal church in America, stumbled up- 
on a quotation taken from a "Manuscript History 
of the Plantation of Plymouth etc., in the Fulham 
Library." Fortunately the scholar, the Rev. John 
S. Barry, was well versed in Americana. He recog- 
nized at once the language of Bradford as cited by 
Morton and Prince, and there were other passages 
not recognized as having been previously quoted. 

Upon the delicious scent of an important dis- 
covery, Mr. Barry immediately carried his tale to 
Charles Deane of Cambridge, a member of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, who lost no time 
in writing to London to have the manuscript in the 
Fulham Library inspected. It turned out to be the 
veritable Bradford history — Of Plimoth Planta- 
tion. A very charming correspondence between 



THE PILGRIMS AT PLYMOUTH 195 

scholars and antiquarians followed, which led to 
the forwarding of an exact copy of the manuscript, 
made by authority of the Bishop of London. The 
relic was first published in the Proceedings of the 
Massachusetts Historical Society, for 1856. 

Massachusetts then became anxious to recover the 
document itself, a desire that was gratified, in 1897, 
by its restoration to the city from which it had mys- 
teriously disappeared. How the manuscript reached 
the library of the Bishop of London, at Fulham, is 
a mystery that has never been solved; how long it 
had remained there before its accidental discovery 
and identification, nobody knows. 



CHAPTER IX 
MODERN PLYMOUTH 

Plymouth quite wonderfully holds its own, as 
a modern town, against the weight of historic heri- 
tage, beneath which one had expected to find it 
fairly crushed. So far is this from the case that we 
find the new Plymouth rising from the disintegra- 
tion of the old with almost too complete disregard of 
memorable past — of its vital place in the annals of 
New England — its significance as the cradle of 
the republic. 

So completely has Plymouth obliterated its 
touching past that no convincing landmark re- 
mains to establish, for an effort at mental rehabil- 
itation, a definite and indisputable point of orienta- 
tion. There is, to be sure, the exquisite lay of the 
land — the town upon three levels — with its sempi- 
ternal relation to the harbour and the features com- 
passed therein. But while the structural fabric 
remains, things in Plymouth have been too tidily set 
to rights to retain, still less to exhale, the essential 
perfume of the past, by whose aid we might invoke 

196 



MODERN PLYMOUTH 197 

the vision of the May Flower entering the fair 
prospect which the Plymouth hills command, of the 
Landing from the shallop upon the famous lone 
boulder, of the rude village of the first settlers, or 
of the Forefathers themselves, whose footsteps, 
long since hushed in forgotten graves, trod so val- 
iantly these shores ; whose courage, convictions, and 
hopes made the foundation of the nation; whose 
seed has penetrated to the remotest parts of our 
territorial possessions. 

Like the sober, practical child of divinely gifted 
parents the new Plymouth has sought to make a 
life for itself rather than to sink into the unhealthy 
state of a mere show place. The original town, of 
which every trace has been wiped out, was scarcely 
more than an incubator for a colony whose instincts 
were from the first migratory. The Pilgrims who 
settled Plymouth had lived twelve years in Hol- 
land ; scarcely had they acquired foothold in Amer- 
ica before they began to extend their individual 
possessions through Plymouth, Kingston, Dux- 
bury, and Marshfield. After seventy-two years of 
existence as a concrete body, the Plymouth Colony 
was absorbed by that of Massachusetts Bay — the 
incubator had done its work, a prolific colony was 
ready to disseminate itself throughout the land. 
That pioneer instinct which, however it may be 



198 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

interj^reted, was the fundamental factor in this 
fiig'ht of the Forefathers from England into Hol- 
land, in their exodus from Holland and their entry 
into Plymouth, now urged them to push forward 
through New England and later throughout the en- 
tire country, colonizing even in the far West. 

At the time of the union of the two colonies, 1692, 
the population of Plymouth was about seventy-five 
hundred. In the two and a quarter centuries that 
have elapsed since this event that number has been 
about doubled. IMeanwhile the natural resources 
of the township, scarcely touched by the first set- 
tlers, have been largely utilized; the water power 
has been harnessed to a certain extent, and a great 
diversity of manufacturing enterprises are in pros- 
perous operation. 

The Forefathers, if we are to believe the old rec- 
ords, had only to bale the alewives and herring out 
of the Town Brook as they passed in the spring of 
the year in multitudes to spa^vn in the Billington 
Sea, taking them " with great ease " at their 
" doores." Fish were so abundant that an old 
writer informs us the inhabitants used to " doimg 
their ground with them." This was a trick learned 
from the Indians, whose method of fertilizing the 
soil was to plant two herrings with each kernel of 
corn set out in the spring. " You may see one hun- 




('the clam digger". 

(from an etching by I- rank W. BENSON. 



MODERN PLYMOUTH 199 

dred acres together set with these fish, every acre 
taking a thousand of them," writes Thomas Mor- 
ton, in his New English Canaan, and he assures us 
that a field so fertihzed will yield three times the 
usual crop. Of bass also he writes: " I my selfe, 
at the turning of the tide, haue seen such multitudes 
passe out of a pound that it seemed to mee that we 
might goe over their backs drishod." 

The 23rolificness of the Town Brook has always 
been a source of revenue to the citizens of Plym- 
outh. Formerly every widow of the town was 
allowed so many fish per annum, and later those 
who did not want the fish were given a small sum 
of money in lieu of their so-called " herring rights." 
The fishing privilege of the Town Brook is now sold 
at auction each year, bringing to the town a revenue 
of from $6 to $125 annually. Alewives, commonly 
but erroneously called herrings — a species of 
small shad — still form an important part of the 
yearly catch off the New England coast. 

Fishing, then, furnished the obvious industry for 
the first comers, alternating with the land pursuits 
jDrovided by the grist mills, coopers' shops, domestic 
looms, and fulling mills, together with, of course, 
agriculture, the land being particularly rich and 
fruitful. 

Plymouth vessels once traded all over the world. 



200 A LOITKKKH IN NEW ENGLAND 

Whale fishing, at first conducted from the coast, 
beffan as earlv as 1090, at which time as we know, 
whales were abundant along these shores within 
sight of land; but in 18*21 and 1822 companies were 
formed and vessels built for more extended voyages 
to the remoter habitat of the whale, and for a few 
years Plymouth competed successfully with the 
more important ports in this adventurous com- 
merce. 

Within the memory of people still livingPlymouth 
boasted a fleet of seventy-five schooners engaged in 
the fisheries, where to-day not one vessel is owned in 
the town. Residents point out the location of the 
flake rights along the harbour, now often converted 
into lawns and gardens, where their fathers dried 
the fish brought in daily from near-by waters; and 
this commodity formed the basis of a coastwise and 
gradually increasing foreign trade which sprung 
up in its wake. 

The decline of Plymouth's prestige as a fishing 
port has been succeeded by the rising importance 
of her manufactures, of which those of the great 
cordage works at North Plymouth, the largest 
plant of its kind, take precedence over the other 
products of the township. Owing to the large im- 
portations of raw material from Yucatan and 
JNIanila, used by the Cordage Company, Plymouth 



MODERN PLYMOUTH 201 

now stands next to Boston in regard to foreign im- 
ports in the state. About two thousand workers are 
emjiloyed by this company, forming a fair-sized 
corporation village at Seaside. 

Of the natural resources of the township the cul- 
tivation of cranberries on an extensive scale takes 
the lead. It is said that together with the adjoin- 
ing town of Carver, the two j^roduce more than 
one fourth of the cranberries grown in the United 
States. Plymouth's individual output is estimated 
at about three hundred thousand barrels annually. 

The large area of sand flats in the harbour has 
been granted by the town for the propagation of 
clams, successfully operated and furnishing em- 
ployment to about fifty persons. Brook trout and 
spawn for the market are also raised in quantities 
here, forming a flourishing enterprise. 

Territorially Plymouth is the largest town in 
Massachusetts, extending about twenty miles along 
a richly varied coast, from Kingston to Manomet, 
with a width of from five to ten miles inland. About 
four fifths of its acreage is forest, composed chiefly 
of oaks and pines, and a remarkable feature of the 
township is its fresh-water ponds, of which the citi- 
zens love to boast that there is one for every day in 
the year. 

Billington Sea, the source of the Town Brook, 



202 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

is one of the greatest of these, and was named for 
its discoverer, the notorious John Bilhngton, the 
scapegrace of the May Flower company, who was 
afterwards hanged by the first comers for wilful 
murder. Billington, the records are careful to in- 
form us, was not of the Leyden congregation, but 
was a Londoner, admitted to the company with his 
wife and two sons in England. Not all of the May 
Flower's passengers it will be remembered, came to 
escape religious persecution, a few were pure emi- 
grants, others were hired as useful adjuncts to the 
colonj''. John Alden, for instance, was engaged as 
a coo2:)er at Southhampton, where the ship " vic- 
tuled"; and says Bradford: "being a hopfull yong 
man, was much desired, but left to his owne liking 
to go or stay when he came here." 

The lands of Plymouth rise at the broad north- 
eastern projection into the long wooded eminence 
of INIanomet Point, about four hundred feet above 
the sea level, a truly wild expanse along whose 
ridge, close by the bay wanders an Indian trail, still 
used by the life savers in their coast patrol. The 
outlook from these bluffs is one of the finest and 
most expansive on the coast, commanding nearly 
the entire outline of Cape Cod, from Sandwich to 
Provincetown, as it sweeps round the enclosing bay. 

Some writer has said that the true romance of 




BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH, 

SHOWING THE CHURCH OF THE PILCRI M ACE. 

PHOTOGRAPH BY HELEN MESSINGER MURDOCK. 



THE BRADFORD MONUMENT, 
BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH. 




MODERN PLYMOUTH 203 

Plymouth rests uinm her Riirial Hill — that her 
history is written here. It is true that from this 
dreamy eminenee one could bridge the modern 
town below, obliterated by its sumptuous spreading 
trees. The shabby, crumbling headstones in the 
rambling graveyard fill us with romance, recon- 
struct for us the intimate life of the past — the 
sufferings of the colonists, their courage, their de- 
votion, their faith, })ringing tears of sympathy and 
kinship to our eyes. One feels akin to these dear 
graves with their quaint revealing epitaphs, their 
naive carvings, their artless orthography. From 
their contemj)lation the eye spans to the unchanged 
harbour. All the essential facts are there, just as 
when, three hundred years ago, the shallop 
stumbled within in the teeth of a heavy gale. 

Under the low hanging linden trees on the brow 
of the hill, planted frankly upon the ancestral 
stones, are comfortable benches for leisurely con- 
templation of the exquisite view of the harbour. Out 
of the luxuriant dej^ths of surrounding leafage 
rises as reminder of the three centuries' lapse, only 
the pretty })elfry of the Church of the Pilgrimage, 
its copper-green caj) giving the note to the colour 
scheme of an enchanting prospect. 

To the right three hundred years ago lay the 
Watch Tower; farther ])ack, near the Cushman 



204 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Monunient, the fort, from which the hill took its 
original name — Fort Hill. . The fort was a large 
square house with a flat roof, made of thick planks, 
stayed with oak beams; on the top six cannons 
charged with four or five-pound iron balls, com- 
manding the surrounding country; below in the 
same structure was the church. 

An old letter describes churchgoing in Plymouth 
three centuries ago: "They assemble by beat of 
drum each with his musket or flrelock in front of 
the captain's door; they have their cloaks on, and 
place themselves in order, three abreast and are led 
by a sergeant without beat of drum. Behind comes 
the governor in a long robe ; beside him, on the right 
hand, comes the preacher with his cloak on, and on 
the left hand, the captain with his side arms and 
cloak on, and with a small cane in his hand; and so 
they march in good order and each sets his arms 
dowTi near him. Thus they are constantly on their 
guard, night and day." 

Filled with graves there is not the least mortuary 
suggestion about Burial Hill — it is rather the 
sweetest place in Plymouth, partly from its lovely 
dominance of the town and the harboiu*, partly 
from the traditional informality of its treatment. 
From time to time there have been attempts to cur- 
tail privileges always enjoyed here, and in effect as 



MODERN PLYMOUTH 205 

a pasturage for cattle it is no longer available! As 
late as 1770 indeed the hill was not even fenced; as 
stones gave out or stood in the way of new paths 
they were unceremoniously removed to a rubbish 
heap, from which stone masons and citizens helped 
themselves as convenience required, and the sacred 
relics returned at last to such base uses as coverings 
for drains and cesspools, some of which may still 
be seen about the town. 

Extraordinary irreverance has not resulted in 
desecration actually to the hill itself, only in main- 
taining a sense of intimacy between the living de- 
scendants — of which the town is amazingly full — 
and the buried ancestors. This is the friendliest 
graveyard in all New England. Straight away 
across its summit lie the short cuts between differ- 
ent distant sections of the town, constantly tracked 
by scurrying figures, advancing, meeting, disap- 
pearing in all directions. 

On all sides the hand-carved gravestones, their 
universal slatiness mitigated by enlarging circles of 
tender grey, green, and yellow lichen, stand up in 
picturesque confusion on the grassy slojies. "Folks 
was buried kinda haphazard up here in those days," 
the custodian told me with a delicious clip of his 
words, " — they ain't no sys-tem." It was the family 
burying ground for the survivors of the first winter, 



206 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

and with the idea of an universal brotherhood there 
was in the planting not too much insistence upon 
strict family ties. Most of the old names appear in 
profusion, but scattered throughout the reservation. 
Bradfords are sown broadcast through the grave- 
yard, many clustered about the obelisk to the mem- 
ory of the governor, which approximates his pos- 
sible burial place. 

But the friendly custodian is a well informed 
person, always ready to abandon his light duties — 
they have the superficiality of stage gardening — 
and point out the celebrated graves. May Flower 
names abound, yet one searches in vain for graves 
of any of the original settlers. Of all the colonists 
that came on the first four ships — the May Flower ^ 
the Fortune, the Ann, or the Little James — but 
two rest here in identified graves; these were 
Thomas Cushman of the Fortune, and Thomas 
Clark of the Ann. The handsome stone in purple 
Welsh slate, which marks the grave of Thomas 
Clark, who died in 1697, in the ninety-eighth year 
of his age, is in excellent preservation; that which 
records the resting place of Thomas Cushman has 
only recently been restored to the proximity of his 
grave. The great granite shaft to the memory of 
the Cushman family is of course a modern struc- 
ture. When it was erected in 1858, the descendants 



MODERN PLYMOUTH 207 

of Elder Cushman removed the ancient stone to 
make room for the more pretentious memorial. 

Sometimes old, disintegrating stones have been 
imbedded in granite to protect and preserve the 
fragments, while a very great many wear protecting 
rims of metal. The oldest stones — some half 
dozen, placed towards the end of the seventeenth 
century — have thus been deprived of their con- 
vincing aspect of antiquity. 

The oldest stone is dated 1681, and marks the 
grave of Edward Gray, a wealthy merchant of the 
colony ; it is of native blue slate, rudely cut ; both it 
and the headstone to the grave of William Crowe, 
who "deceased" in January 1683-1684, have been 
recut and mounted in gi-anite frames. Most of the 
stones up to the year 1745 were brought over from 
England, which has been supposed partly to ac- 
count for the absence of earlier memorials. A more 
reasonable theory, however, is that the first colonists 
were buried on their own lands in private grave- 
yards, and that as little value was attached to such 
relics until about half a century ago, such stones 
as were placed disintegrated and were ploughed 
under the soil in the course of time. 

History and tradition on this subject are confus- 
ing in Plymouth; it is not definitely known where 
were buried Bradford, Brewster, Carver, Stephen 



208 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

Hopkins, Samuel Fuller, Francis Eaton, Peter 
Brown, and others who died in Phinouth before 
1681, the date of the earliest known grave on Bur- 
ial Hill. There is a tradition that Major William 
Bradford, who died in 1704 and whose grave is 
known, asked to be buried near his father, the 
governor, and it is upon the strength of this tradi- 
tion that the marble obelisk was placed, in 182.5, on 
the summit of the hill, from which the view is most 
enchanting. Similarly the modern stone to the 
memory of John Howland, of the May Flower 
company, and who died at his home in Rock}' X^ook, 
in 1672-1673, marks no definite grave, though he 
was supposed to have been buried on the hill. John 
Howland is well remembered, however, as the last 
sur^'ivor of the first colonists residing in PhTnouth. 
He died at the age of eighty years. 

The grave of Francis Le Baron, a surgeon on a 
French privateer, fitted at Bordeaux and wrecked 
in Buzzards Bay, has a romantic interest for visitors 
as the resting place of the hero of the American 
Jane Austen's '' Xameless X'obleman." Her story 
tells, with much fidelity to fact, of the crew of his 
vessel being taken to Boston as prisoners of war. 
In passing through PhTnouth Dr. Le Baron suc- 
cessfully operated upon a suffering citizen, and for 
this ser\'ice was liberated and remained to become a 




# 



TOMBSTONE OF FRAXCIS LE BAROX, THE NAMELESS XOBLEMAN, 
BURIAL HILL, PLYMOUTH. 



house of the 
"nameless nobleman' 
at falmouth. 

FROM AX ETCHIXr, 
BY SEARS GALLAGHER. 




MODERX rLY:\IOrTH 209 

successful practitioner in the town. He married 
3Iary Wilder, of Plymouth, and their son, Lazarus, 
whose stone stands near that of his parents, suc- 
ceeded to his father's practice. The stone is hand- 
somely inscribed: 

HERE LYES Y BODY 

OF FRANCIS LEBARRAN 

PHYTICIAX WHO 

DEPARTED THIS LIFE 

AUG Y 2 1704 

IX Y 36 YEAR 

OF HIS AGE 

Until about half a century ago nature pursued 
her course unmolested on Burial Hill. Badly 
broken and defaced gravestones lay about the 
ground and every winter more ancient slates gave 
way to ruthless storms and destructive frosts. A 
list of inscriptions begun about this time, and since 
published,^ presenes many for which no stones can 
now be found. 

About the year 1735, during a heavy storm, a 
tremendous freshet rushed through ^Middle Street, 
washing awav the bank of Cole's Hill at its foot and 
laying bare many of the traditional graves of the 
Forefathers, washing their bones into the sea. Later 

* Epitaphs from Burial Hill, Bradford Kingman, 1892. 



210 A LOITERER IX XEW EXGLAXD 

in digging the cellar of a house in 3Iiddle Street, 
part of a skeleton was found, but not presented, 
and in 1855 workmen engaged in digging a trench 
for the waterworks discovered parts of tive skele- 
tons in the same vicinity. This appeared to estab- 
lish beyond question the tradition that Cole's Hill 
received the bodies of the victims of the first winter 
on these shores. These bones sealed in a metal cof- 
fin, are deposited in a chamber in the canopy over 
the Rock, at the base of the hill. A granite slab at 
the top of the hill marks the repository of several 
other skeletons that were exhumed later in digging 
post holes for the fence which divides the grassy 
slope from the driveway at its summit. 

Plymouth suffers singularly in her efforts at the 
monumental. It is unfortunate that she awoke to 
this fancied need at the worst period of our national 
adolescence in matters of taste. The granite can- 
opy over the Rock dates from the same year that 
saw the inception of that greater evil the national 
^Monument to the Forefathers, which stands on the 
noblest eminence of the beautiful to^ii. its gigan- 
tesque proportions, upon which guidebooks have 
seized as facts with which to stagger visitors, for- 
ever doing violence to the most sacred traditions of 
modest men whose memory it would honour and 
perpetuate. 



MODEKX rLY:MOUTH 211 

The absurdity of the thrice moved rock, under its 
ponderous canopy, deprives the renowned reUc of 
its simple dignity. Threatened by extinction in 
174)1, when it was proposed to build a wharf over 
it, the pious protests of faithful citizens availed 
little against the necessities of commerce. The 
wharf was built and in the pathway of the rock, but 
before its completion a ceremony of farewell was 
enacted which has fixed beyond all peradventure 
the identity of the Forefathers' stepping-stone. 
Elder Thomas Faunce, whose grave may be found 
on Burial Hill, then ninety-four years of age, was 
carried to the shore and in the presence of a nmn- 
ber of persons, gathered to witness the benediction 
of the patriarch, pointed out the rock '' bedewed it 
with his tears and bid it an everlasting adieu." 

As a matter of fact, however, the rock was not 
totally buried. Public sentiment, so touchingly 
expressed evidently had its effect, and the builders 
of the wharf are suj^posed to have dragged the rocli 
from its bed farther up on the beach where im- 
bedded in the paving its top might still be visible 
above the roadway of the wharf. Again over-zeal- 
ous patriots in 1744 on the brink of the Revolution 
resolved to consecrate the precious relic to the cause 
of liberty, and proposed to remove the rock bodily 
to the Town Square. Thatcher tells us that Colonel 



212 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Theo2)hilus Cotton and a large number of inhabi- 
tants assembled with about thirty yoke of oxen to 
convey the rock to a more conspicuous place. ^ 

Plymouth Rock was originally a solitary boulder 
of about seven tons, and presumably of glacial de- 
posit. It is of greenish syenite, and must have been a 
conspicuous object in 31 ay Flower days, as the only 
rock on a long stretch of sandy coast. Its removal 
constituted something of an engineering feat, a feat 
beyond the prowess of the ambitious patriots, it 
would seem, for in attempting to mount it on the 
carriage, it split asunder, " without any violence," 
says Thatcher, and the lower part dropped back to 
its bed. The separation of the rock was considered 
a symbol of the successful outcome of the struggle 
for independence. Nothing daunted the upper half 
of the severed rock was carried to the Town Square 
and there installed with triumphant ceremony. It 
remained there for over half a century. 

Meanwhile the Old Colony Pilgrim Society was 
founded in 1820, and Pilgrim Hall was built as its 
headquarters, and, as part of a Fourth of July 
demonstration in the year 1834, the fragment of the 
rock was again loaded upon a vehicle and dragged 
to what was considered a more fitting location in 
front of the proud edifice. For another fifty years 

* History of the Town of Plymouth. Thatcher. 2d edition, 1835. 



MODERX PLYMOUTH 213 

the relic stood in the garden to the left of the old 
wooden portico of the original fa9ade of the hall, 
to the unending puzzlement of visitors, who would 
stare in amazement at the relative locations of the 
harbour and the stepping-stone and marvel at the 
stride of the mighty ancestors. In 1880 by a sud- 
den accession of wisdom, the detached portion was 
reunited to the parent rock at the head of the wharf, 
the land having meanwhile come into the possession 
of the Pilgrim Society. Further plans for the res- 
toration of the whole environment contemplated 
the removal of the unfortunate canopy and the un- 
sightly wharves which lie at the foot of Cole's Hill. 

The architect of the canopy was the architect of 
the monument, on the outskirts of the town. A me- 
morial to the Forefathers had been projected since 
1794, when Joseph Coolidge of Boston gave a guinea 
as the nucleus of the fund, but it was not until 
1854 that a competition was held and a firm of 
Hungarians, Messrs. Zuckner and Asboth, won the 
prize offered for the best plans and estimates ; Ham- 
matt Billings, however, received the contract for 
both the canopy over the rock and the monument. 

The corner stone of the latter was laid in 18.59 
and the monument was completed in 1888, its erec- 
tion therefore covers the epoch of the Civil War and 
the Centennial period. Tbe Pilgrim Society fathered 



214 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

the project, and the cost of erection was defrayed 
by various organizations and individual contribu- 
tors. Hammatt Billings died during the progress 
of the work, but his brother, Joseph, carried out the 
contract according to the other's drawings. 

The whole thing is a dreary pile of heavy realism. 
Furthermore the monument is out of scale with 
little Plymouth — it would be a monster even in 
New York. The figure of Faith which sin-mounts 
the main pedestal, is a frank adaptation of the Venus 
de JNIilo, modelled by a rather eminent Boston 
sculptor, painter, and physician, Dr. William Rim- 
mer, after a design furnished by the architect. The 
contract was staggering. Dr. Rimmer agreed to 
deliver in two and a half months' time, for the sum 
of $2,000, a nine-foot statue in plaster, from which 
the finished stone figure was to be enlarged and cut. 

The original statue, as Rimmer completed it, was 
in effect a modified Venus with the foot and arms 
restored, the characteristic small head. The raised 
foot is supposed to rest upon the famous rock; the 
right hand points upward to suggest the subject, 
the left holds a Bible. All these details were im- 
posed upon the sculptor, who, that he might not 
depart from them was furnished with a small model 
of the architect's design " for his guidance." 

Despite the banality of the idea, the haste re- 



MODERN PLYMOUTH 215 

quired, and the absurdly inadequate compensation 
stipulated in the contract, not to speak of his obliga- 
tion to meet "the entire satisfaction of Joseph Bil- 
lings," Dr. Rimmer, who was a conscientious soul, 
took pains with the modelling of the figure, cover- 
ing the body with a filmy drapery that rcAxaled the 
development of the muscles and the lines of the 
form, in classic style. Evidently this last detail 
was not to the entire satisfaction of the architect's 
brother. ]Mr. Billings paid the bill, however, with- 
out protest, and summarily handed Dr. Rimmer's 
work over to another sculptor to "use as a frame- 
work" for the figure as it now stands. By way of 
making it acceptable to the architect, this sculptor, 
evidently something of a jobber, made a new and 
bigger head, loaded the figure with bunchy dra- 
peries, effectively concealing the form, receiving for 
his pains the sum of $300. Aside from Dr. Rim- 
mer's part, the so-called sculpture on the monument 
was furnished by the granite company which pro- 
vided the stone, according to the desperate methods 
of the day. 

I first saw Plymouth early in the month of July, 
when the whole atmosphere of the town was fra- 
grant with the bloom of the linden trees, which are 
many in Plymouth. The setting cannot fail to 
strike one as exquisite. This oldest town of New 



216 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

England has undeniable style and distinction. The 
railway station, the terminus of the line, lies back 
close to the water, and fronts upon a grassy place, 
lined with handsome trees through which one walks 
to Court Street, the main thoroughfare. Court 
Street, really the widened and improved Indian 
trail of remoter times, to the left leads on to the site 
of the old town, and followed, under various 
changes of name, makes straight away down the 
south coast past INIanomet, through Sagamore, 
Sandwich, and thence " down Cape." 

That Greek temple on the left, at the corner of 
Chilton Street, is Pilgrim Hall, the first and most 
worthy monument to the memory of the Pilgrims. 
Besides a rare and valuable library belonging to 
the Pilgrim Society, is a collection of interesting 
souvenirs of the planters of the colony. The sword 
of ^lyles Standish, a Damascus blade inscribed 
with Arabic legends, perhaps an heritage from the 
Crusaders; Governor Bradford's Bible, printed at 
Geneva in 1592; Peregrine AVhite's cradle which 
crossed, preparedly, on the May Flower; the patent 
of the Plymouth Colony, the oldest state document 
in New England — the same that Robert Cushman 
brought over in the Fortune, in 1621; these are a 
few of the treasures of Plymouth — touching relics 
that offer tangible proof of the truth of the Pilgrim 




NORTH STREET THROWING OUT A LEFT BRANCH — WINSLOW STREET- 

BOTH LEADING TO THE HARBOUR. 

PHOTOGRAPHS BY HELEN MESSINGER MURDOCK. ' 



•I 



'1 



MODERN PLYINIOUTPI 217 

story. And still more convincing perhaps is the 
frame of the SjJarroti'hatck, wrecked on Cape Cod, 
about which Bradford gossips in his annals Of 
Plimoth Plantation. 

That beautiful mansion, at the corner of Court 
Square, is said to have been built in 1805, and from 
the elegance of its proportions and finish has been 
ascribed to Charles Bulfinch. In any case it is 
worthy to stand with the finest of the JNIcIntire 
houses in old Salem; especially was it originally of 
that company, for until 1840 its porch was rounded 
and supported by clover-leaf columns, harmonizing 
with the windows as they are to-day. 

Within, at the invitation of the chdtclain, I sat in 
Governor Bradford's chair and held in my hands 
the Commentary on the Proverbs of Solo7non, 
printed by William Brewster, at Ley den, in 1617. 
After, a wide door in the rear of the mansion, dis- 
closed, as a great surprise, a glorious New England 
garden, completely concealed from the street by 
something distressingly modern and practical. This 
luxuriant garden wandered half way through the 
block and at its extremity rose a gorgeous Welling- 
ton elm, flinging long spare arms with graceful 
abandon across the sky and then breaking out into 
a shower of perfect leaves, which fluttered back to 
earth like the most spectacular of rockets. The 



218 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

charm of this hidden garden was like a Swinburne 
poem. 

The essence of old Plymouth confines itself to 
an egg-shaped section in the heart of the modern 
town. Taking a turn to the right from Court 
Street through South Russell Street, one enters 
Burial Hill by a back way ; crossing its summit, the 
obvious path leads again to the JNIain Street — a 
continuation of the modernized Indian trail — and 
across Town Square lies Leyden Street, with the 
Town Brook on the right. We are now upon the 
site of the first houses of the colonists, built upon 
the south side of the street so that their gardens ran 
down to the brook and enjoyed a sunny exposure. 
A tablet affixed to a frame dwelling as the street 
declines marks the location of the Common House, 
the first building erected by the Pilgrims. 

Looking up Leyden Street, across Town Square, 
and over the very modern Church of the First 
Parish, imagination may visualize the Old Fort and 
the Watch Tower of three centuries ago, when 
Elder Brewster's property replaced the handsome 
post-office of our day, and Governor Bradford 
lived diagonally ojiposite, under the shelter of Fort 
Hill. "The houses," writes de Rasieres, despatched 
on an embassy from New Amsterdam to the Plym- 
outh Colony, in 1627, "are constructed of hewn 



MODERX PLYMOUTH 219 

planks with gardens also enclosed behind and the 
sides with hewn planks, so that their houses and 
courtyards are arranged in very good order, with a 
stockade against a sudden attack, and at the ends of 
the street there are three wooden gates. In the 
centre on the cross street stands the governor's 
house, before which is a square enclosure upon which 
four patereros ( steen stucken ) are mounted so as to 
flank along the streets." 

Behind the Burial Hill, following a street which 
winds out from the Town Square, lies the route to 
Morton Park and the famous Billington Sea, 
named for its nefarious discoverer. 

A pretty characteristic in Plymouth is a habit its 
streets have of branching out, one from another, due 
to its three levels. Leyden Street throws out a 
graceful left branch to take care of the brow of 
Cole's Hill, itself wandering steeply down the 
slope to Water Street, amongst the wharves and 
past the Plymouth Rock. The blunt end of the 
egg is upon the harbour; Carver Street parallels 
Water Street, looking down into the roofs of 
houses on the lower thoroughfare at its most salient 
curve. There is something charmingly English 
about Plymouth — something exceptionally in- 
dividual in its terraced setting. 

The brow of Cole's Hill, shaded with more low 



220 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

branching lindens and magnificent elms, contains 
within itself the romanticism of centuries. I used 
to love to walk there at night, under the stars, all 
modern Plymouth blotted out by the obscuring 
dark, to recreate for myself the primitive environ- 
ment of the first comers — the graves here freshly 
filled under foot, the seven houses around the bend 
there in Leyden Street, that steady spot of light at 
the end of the Beach might easily be the beacon 
upon the May Floiver, standing by, the one link 
with the old life, comfort, civilization. 

Suddenly the climax of the summer evening would 
come — a small, clear, over-brilliant constellation, 
growing incredibly out of the horizon and moving 
rapidly along the furthermost border of vision. The 
illusion of the past was gone — this was the New 
York boat, making with speed for the short cut 
through the Cape Cod Canal. 



CHAPTER X 
SALEM OF THE WITCHES 

Salem plants frankly her worst foot foremost. A 
city deflected from its intended course by the cajjrice 
of fortune, the immediate prospect into which the 
aesthetic loiterer is steamed, over the antiquated 
roadway from Lynn and Boston, is the one which, 
though standing upon oldest ground, has been most 
" tampered with " in the effort of a petty commerce 
to react against the oblivion into which vaster en- 
terprise has cast this delicious town. 

That the loiterer is steamed at all, in place of be- 
ing wafted, as was the original intention, makes at 
once for the false note in the picture, offers the 
awakening jolt to serene sestheticism. All that is 
beautiful, historic, epic in Salem antedates the 
steam road, which, as a mere afterthought, drags us 
in by a back way, through the debris of the great 
fire, past the horrors of the reconstruction period, 
presents the picture — to return to my figure — 
upside down, wrong side out. 

Yet the afterthought, as a symbol of the turning 
current which left Salem, at the height of its pros- 

221 



222 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

perity, stranded and impotent, operating" at the 
same time to the immense advantage of such then 
minor ports as New York, Boston, and Philadel- 
phia, explains so much of Salem's plight, that it 
may be well, just here on the threshold, to deal with 
it now. 

This threshold, in fact, considering it to be the 
early Norman shell which stands thinly before the 
train shed, marks the last stand which the town 
made against supersession, before yielding, relin- 
quishing its claim to be the court city of New Eng- 
land. Salem, the most ancient town of old IVIassa- 
chusetts, the second English settlement of New 
England, the second city to be incor23orated in the 
commonwealth, had from the beginning been 
thought destined to be the seat of state govern- 
ment. And it was in the fond conviction that the 
chief business of the Old Eastern Railroad would 
be conducted in Salem, that David Augustus Neal, 
its president, built this imposing gateway to his 
native place. 

The sublime irrelevance of early Norman intru- 
sion in this purest of Georgian settings of castel- 
lated turrets and mullioned windows, screening the 
sooty exhalations of transient engines that thun- 
dered into the artless rear of the masked train shed, 
and charged on through the unsubstantiated facade, 



SALEM OF THE WITCHES 223 

and so, burrowing Washington Street, through a 
short black tunnel, on to Beverly — was not to 
strike this ardent citizen bent wholly and only upon 
enriching still further the already famous architec- 
ture of his town. Salem folks were accustomed to 
exotics; the captains had for upwards of two cen- 
turies been bringing curios from the Eastern ports 
into the town, but until now they had been satisfied 
with the designs of the local housewrights for their 
dwellings and public buildings. Just what they 
thought of this first departure from the simplicity of 
indigenous building I have not been able to discover. 
David Augustus Neal had been abroad, he had seen 
such things in foreign cities — inland cities where the 
captains did not go — and in place of bringing ob- 
jects for the museum he brought ideas for a far 
grander Salem — Salem the capital of Massa- 
chusetts — and possibly the quiet citizens accepted 
the tiu'rets and the rest as something befitting its 
potential exaltation. 

That it took a certain hold on the place is shown 
by the old church of about the same epoch (1846) 
which faces the ancient common, presenting a Mel- 
rose Abbey window between indented towers, and 
designed by Richard Upjohn, the famous architect 
of Xew York's famous Trinity Church, finished 
this same year. 



224 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

In the comparative juvenility of one's own back- 
ward reach, as reaches go, the Salem threshold was 
already old and blackened with age and use when 
first seen on a trip to the end of Cape Ann, when 
it was accepted unquestioningly as one of the 
" sights " of a more extended travel than had hith- 
erto been taken. It seemed in those days quite the 
most symbolic thing in Salem, and, taken in con- 
nection with the short, black tunnel, far more sug- 
gestive of witches and witching than Gallows Hill, 
for all its awful name; or the Witch House, en- 
deared more particularly to the unfledged mind as 
a storehouse of the native and, alas, all too late 
lamented Salem Gibraltar, of happy memory; or 
the mild-mannered slate in the burying ground over 
the mortal remains of the wife of old Giles Corey — 
he, poor dear, was crushed to death for holding his 
tongue, in the witchcraft trials, and so, one pictured, 
had no mortal remains; more suggestive, in fine, 
than the House of Seven Gables itself, hopelessly 
confounded in one's summary of the ancient leg- 
ends, but made out vaguely by the fledgling to have 
had to do with witching because of its many peaked 
ends, or hoods, clearly relics of the witches them- 
selves ! 

The Old Eastern Railway wears its giant's robe 
loosely, carelessly, a thin disguise donned by a bold 




THE HOUSE OF SEVEN c;AI!LKS. ERECTED lt)t)2, REMODELED IQIO. 



THE GREAT HOUSE , 
BUILT BY PHILIP 

ENGLISH IN 1685. 
FROM A SKETCH IN 
THE ESSEX INSTITUTE 
RECONSTRUCTED FROM 
A CONTEMPORARY 
DRAWING. 




SALE^I OF THE WITCHES 225 

masqiierader who came to town intent upon plun- 
der and who got away with literally everything 
there was to take. What the swaggering bully came 
for is only too pitifully evident, if one will but take 
the trouble to delve, or even to dip a little into the 
annals of the town. 

Salem's prestige was as a port. Its proper and 
logical approach is from the sea. As one sails into 
tlie harboiu' around the promontory of INIarblehead, 
or along the coast from the Eastern Point of Cape 
Ann, one gets the true picture of the town — from 
that side the scene is set, and any other entree is to 
enter the stage from behind the scenes or through 
the wings. JNIy theory is that what with witches and 
witchcraft, which have been vastly overworked; and 
Hawthorne and his scarcely localized Seven Gables, 
in which the tourist mind has been steeped, and 
which if faithfully followed up can readily consume 
the few hours between trains usually allotted for the 
"doing" of Salem, the intenser romance of the 
dead maritime industries, extinguished by the rail- 
road, has been overlooked, or minimized fairly out 
of its true relation . 

The only communication of the first settlers with 
the civilized world, we are constantly to remind our- 
selves, was by sea. Tliere were no roads ; almost all 
traffic between the colonies was bv water. This was 



226 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

especially true of New England, whose sea was full 
of fish, and whose forests ran down to the water's 
edge, convenient for the building of boats. When 
the Plymouth Colony sent its first offshoot to the 
North Shore it came by the simple short way across 
the water. As Naumhcag, or Marble-harbour, or 
Salem, to give its three stages at a bound, was first 
" patented " it embraced in one New England 
" town " the villages now known as ^Manchester, 
Beverly, Danvers, Peabody, iNIiddleton, with parts 
of Lynn, Topsfield, and Wenham. ^liddleton, 
Topsfield, and Wenham are inland, but the others 
were all readily enough accessible by boats, though 
awkward to come at by land. There were indeed 
so many boats plying across the harbour and up 
and down the rivers that Pastor Higginson, writ- 
ing in 1633, says "There be more canoes in this 
town than in all the whole patent ; every household 
having a water horse or two." 

The first of the now dead maritime industries 
was fishing. In the library of the Essex Institute 
in Salem may be seen Roger Conant's charter, 
dated 1 623, which licensed the settling of the North 
Shore of INIassachusetts Bay. Early in the year 
1624 Robert Cushman wrote Bradford: "We have 
tooke a patente for Cape Anne." This patent or 
charter was issued bv Lord Sheffield, a member of 



SALEM OF THE WITCHES 227 

the council for New England, to the associates of 
Robert Cushman and Edward Winslow. It gave 
" free liberty to fiish, fowl, hawke, and hunt, truck, 
and trade," in the region of Cape Ann. Five hun- 
dred acres were to be reserved for public uses, " as 
for the building of a towne, schooles, churches, hos- 
pitals," etc., and thirty acres were to be allotted every 
person, young or old, who should come and dwell 
at Cape Ann within the next seven years. These 
allotments were to be made " in one entire place, 
and not stragling in dyvers or remote parcells." 
This whole grant furthermore was not to exceed 
one and a half miles of water front. This was the 
first legal basis for the settlement and defence of 
an English town upon Cape Ann, where Glouces- 
ter was afterwards built. 

The big idea with England, or with the " adven- 
turers" — the word was used in the special old 
sense of speculators — formed into divers compa- 
nies to open up the resources of the colonial posses- 
sions — was to push the settlement of the large 
grants by dividing the land in severalty amongst 
their members. The region about Cape Ann fell 
to Edmund, Lord Sheffield; he sold the patent for 
it to Cushman and Winslow, acting for the Plym- 
outh Colony. England, as we know, had but the 
vaguest ideas upon the extent of the territory 



228 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

which it dispensed with an indiscriminate largesse 
that frequently led to hitter misunderstandings 
when the various owners came to take possession of 
grants or purchases. When the Plymouth Colony 
attempted to push its claim upon Cape Ann it 
found the place already planted as a fishing stage 
by the "Dorchester Adventurers," an unincorpor- 
ated stock company of merchants in the shire town 
of Dorset, who had been sending vessels to fish off 
the New England coast. For the time the two 
claimants made room for each other and agreed, 
but inevitable disputes and complications were 
finally settled, in 1624, by Winslow's comjDany sell- 
ing out its rights — comprising the site of Glouces- 
ter — to the Dorchester Adventurers. 

The Pilgrims were very bad fishermen. There is 
recorded no instance of a successful fishing stage 
being conducted by any of the off-shoots of the Pil- 
grim fathers. Roger Conant made a signal failure 
of the business when, upon a reconstruction of the 
management of the settlement at Cape Ann, he 
was invited by the Dorchester Company to act as 
overseer or governor of that enterprise. Hubbard 
describes him as a "religious, sober, and prudent 
gentleman." He figures in the early history of the 
planters as an independent settler, who had with- 
drawn from Plymouth because of a disaffection for 



SALKJNI OF THP: WITCHES 229 

the Separatist views of that community. With the 
faihire of the fishing stage at Gloucester, followed 
the dissolution of the "adventurers" and most of 
the settlers returned to England. Conant mar- 
shalled the remnant of the colony and transplanted 
it to the sheltered harbour of the peninsula known 
to the Indians as Nahtmikeike or Naumkeag, where 
he founded Salem. 

Conant's staunch character was all that held the 
depleted colony together during the first months 
which followed his removal to Salem. His little 
band was all for disintegration, flight to Virginia, 
or even home to England; but Conant had the 
tenacity of purpose of strong men and he stayed 
the flight, as he himelf says, by his " utter deniall to 
goe away" and so they held the ground taken, at 
the " hassard " of their lives. 

While they held the ground their cause was 
pushed zealously at home by the Reverend John 
White, of Dorchester, a famous Puritan divine, 
usually called the Patriarch of Dorchester, whose 
heart was set upon the establishment of colonies in 
Massachusetts which might become places of ref- 
uge from the corruptions and oppressions which 
prevailed at home under James I. Conant came to 
Naumkeag in the autumn of 1626 and there were 
two years of solitary struggle there for mainte- 



230 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

nance before White was able to make good his prom- 
ises to the colony. Through his intervention, how- 
ever, in the spring of 1628, a grant was obtained 
from the Council for New England, conveying a 
new territory included liberally between three miles 
north of the Merrimac River and three miles south 
of the Charles, and extending grandly from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific oceans. This grant was of 
course made when the Pacific coast was supposed to 
lie not far west of the Hudson, and, in the usual 
heedless style, ignored several preceding patents 
obligingly issued for parts of the same territory, 
engendering disputes and wrangles which were to 
occupy the settlers for fully half a century to come. 
The grant was, however, backed up by the arrival 
of John Endecott, in September of the same year, 
with sixty persons to reinforce the settlement at 
iSfanmkeag, and with a charter which suspended 
that of Roger Conant, disposed of in the casual 
manner of the remoter government. In the ensu- 
ing months eleven ships brought a total of 1,500 
colonists to swell the domain, and, Conant ousted, 
Endecott found himself governor of a larger colony 
than Plymouth after its nine years of struggle and 
growth. Roger Conant's part was played, he could 
but yield to Endecott's authority, while the first set- 
tlers were transferred along w ith the land, the whole 



SALEM OF THE WITCHES 231 

incorporated into a town under the Hebrew name, 
Salem, to signify the peace which they established 
together there. 

With a profounder sense of the psychology of 
government than is usually accredited to them, the 
home guard in outfitting the colonial settlements 
saw well to it that some form of the " church " should 
go hand in hand with the elements of " state." 

When Roger Conant split away from the Plym- 
outh Colony it was in company with others who 
sided with the Rev. John Lyford, who had been 
banished from that community. We read so much 
about the religious intolerance of the Puritan set- 
tlements that it seems only fair to acquit the Fore- 
fathers, in this case, of any religious prej udice. The 
case against the Rev. John Lyford, as related in the 
Bradford History, has little enough to do with re- 
ligion, save where the offender profited by the pro- 
tection of his cloth, and makes as pretty a piece of 
common scandal as one could wish to read. Brad- 
ford deals with it with that naivete and simplicity 
that makes the charm of his narrative throughout 
— he never seems to judge in so many words, but 
one feels the intensely human passion through his 
temperate sentences, and with what satisfaction he 
sits back and watches the working out of a divine 
vengeance. 



232 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

The specific charge against Lyf ord — the last 
straw added to much incriminating evidence of a 
similar nature, adduced by his unfortunate wife — 
Bradford goes into with considerable restraint, yet 
artfully disclosing the whole sordid story — a sor- 
did story which is, however, perversely, not without 
its distinctly himiorous side. Lyford in his ca- 
pacity as pastor of the flock is appealed to by one of 
the ingenuous young lambs to pass upon the worthi- 
ness of a young woman whom the youth thinks of 
taking for a wife, yet holds his ardour in abeyance 
pending the decision of his spiritual adviser as to 
the wisdom of his choice. Lyford with a caution all 
too exemplary defers judgment, putting the young 
lamb off until he can find occasion, as he says, 
to meet and know the young woman well enough 
to speak with authority upon so important a matter. 
There seems to have been nothing that Lyford 
would not do for a friend, and so throwing himself 
without reserve into the investigation, he informs 
himself upon the girl most thoroughly and capably, 
leaving no aspect of her eligibility untested, as all 
too lamentably comes out in her future state; but 
for the time Lyford seeks out our yoimg man, 
recommends his choice with warmth as " fitted " in 
every way to be his wife, and so leaves it. The 
scoundrel had not counted, however, upon the girl's 



SALEM OF THE WITCHES 233 

reaction, her own fundamental integrity. She in- 
evitably tells her husband and he, of course, bears 
the monstrous tale to the heads of the Plymouth 
Colony. 

Whether the truth of the matter was hushed up 
and the case put upon some j^olitical difference, or 
whatever, Bradford does not make clear; but at 
any rate we find Lyford leaving Plymouth imme- 
diately after, followed by a certain number of loyal 
adlierents. The seceders retired to Nantasket, and 
it was from the temporary settlement there that 
the Dorchester company chose Roger Conant to 
take charge of the planting and fishing at Cape 
Ann ; John Oldham, who was afterwards murdered 
by the Indians at Block Island, to superintend the 
Indian trade; and Lyford to officiate as minister. 
Possibly the charge against the latter was not un- 
derstood by the Patriarch of Dorchester, at least. 
Lyford's subsequent departure from Cape Ann to 
Virginia split up and nearly wrecked the commun- 
ity, for most of the members wished to follow their 
pastor. 

Endecott's installation, as governor of Conant's 
transplanted colony, was after the arrival at Salem 
of the first six ships that came to swell its numbers 
under the leadership of Francis Higginson, of St. 
John's College, Cambridge, rector of a church in 



234 A LOITERER IX XEW EXGLAXD 

Leicestershire, who had been deprived of his living 
for nonconformity. He came out to Nmunkeag to 
found the church in the new community, and the 
more gladly as he hoped by this change to reestab- 
lish his infirm health and prolong his usefulness. 
His mildness of spirit is brought out in the picture 
recorded of him calling his family and friends to the 
stern of the vessel as it quitted the old country and 
saying: "We do not go to X^ew England as Sepa- 
ratists from the Church of England, though we can- 
not but separate from the corruption of it; but we 
go to practice the positive part of church reforma- 
tion and propagate the gospel in America." 

This was to mean the founding of the first com- 
pletely organized Congregational church in Amer- 
ica. It marked one of the beginnings, also, of local 
civic government, for the inhabitants of Salem or- 
"anized their church and chose their officers bv 
ballot. 

In Governor Bradford's Letter Boolx is pre- 
served a letter written to Bradford by Charles 
Gott, of Salem, describing the ceremony of July 20, 
1()29, which ]Mr. Endecott had set apart for the 
choice of a pastor and teacher : 

"Their choice was after this manner, every fit 
member wrote in a note his name whom the Lord 
moved him to think was fit for a pastor, and so like- 




REAR OF THE OLD WITCH HOUSE 



AN OLD HOUSE BUILT IN 1684 SHOWING 
GABLES. OVER-HANGING STORY AND THE 
LEAN-TO CHARACTERISTIC OF THE FIRST 
PERIOD OF SALEM ARCHITECTURE. NOW IN 
THE GROUNDS OF THE ESSEX INSTITUTE, 
SALEM. 




SALEM OF THE WITCHES 235 

wise whom they would have for a teacher; so the 
most voice was for JNIr. Skelton to be pastor and 
Mr. Higgi(n)son teacher; and they accepting the 
choice, Mr. Higgi(n)son with three or four of the 
gravest members of the church laid their hands on 
Mr. Skelton using prayers therewith. This being 
done, then there was an imposition of hands on Mr. 
Higgi(n)son. Then there was proceeding in 
election of elders and deacons, but they were only 
named and laying on of hands deferred (prudent 
Forefathers!) to see if it pleased God to send us 
more able men over." 

The assembly at which this was done has been 
called the first "to^Mi meeting" in Massachusetts. 
Its action formed the practical cement to the colony, 
the scientific imion of church and state which was to 
operate for the groundwork of the plant whose 
shoots were in so short a time to extend so far afield. 

These were days of great mortality amongst the 
colonists. It has been estimated that from April 
to December, of the year following its settlement, 
one hundred of the people of Salem died. Higgin- 
son was among the number, he lived to preside over 
his flock little more than a year after his election, 
dying on the sixth of August, 1630, at the early age 
of forty-three. Deprived of their teacher Roger 
Williams was invited to come over from Plvm- 



230 A T.OITEKEH IX NEW ENGLAND 

(lutli and settle as teacher with ^Ir. Skelton, and 
upon the hitter's death, in 1034, he succeeded as 
minister, remaining in all hut hriefly, owing to what 
Bradford calls his "unsettled judo-emente " which 
led them to part easily with him at Plymouth and 
caused the magistrates to drive him from Salem, 
Avhence he went into the wilderness to become the 
founder of the state of Khode Island. 

We are to think of Salem in these early days as 
playing New York's present part, in acting as the 
great clearing house for immigration. Extremely 
restricted within its natural boundaries, the outly- 
ing parts oi' the town separated by rivers and har- 
bours, there was literally no room for growth and 
development commensurate with the inllux of the 
English Puritans, who now began to pour into the 
country driven by the great exodus, of which the 
tentative voyage of the Mai/ Floiccr had been but 
premonitory. Salem, imder the more efficient man- 
agement of the party directing affairs in England, 
became the logical pnrtc d' entree, superseding 
Plymouth so thoroughly that that initial settlement 
was soon swallowed up for identity in the easy dom- 
ination of the ^lassachusetts Bay Colony. 

Of such immigrants as arrived in the first ships, 
Salem itself retained a small percentage. When, in 
1030. Winthrop came to supersede Endecott as the 



SALEM OF THE AVITCITES 237 

governor of the colony, land was already scarce 
and his followers sought new places for their set- 
tlements. Watertown, Roxhiny, Dorchester were 
among the first towns settled hy them. As early as 
1634 some settlers who had left Salem for the Aga- 
wam River began a new town under the name of 
Ipswich. This was the beginning of a gradual dis- 
integration, not at once regarded, however, since it 
was in this same year that Salem, on her own ac- 
count, and regardless of the different members of 
the " town," began most substantially to flourish in 
the way in which she was to achieve so magnifi- 
cently her preeminence. 

In 1636 there was built at " ^larble-harbour," 
the Desire, a vessel of one hundred and twenty tons, 
commanded by Captain Pierce who made the first 
almanack published in America. In 1640 a ship of 
three hundred tons was built at Salem, and within 
two years still another of goodly size was launched, 
with such success that Salem had no rival in this 
commerce, and was now spoken of confidently as 
the proper seat of government. 

On the other hand the " members " of the all em- 
bracing Salem began to flourish in their own ways 
and with that independence of spirit which first 
brought the colonists out from England, began to 
desire their own government. Wenham was the 



238 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

first to have its way; it split off from the parent 
stem in 1643. Manchester became a town in 1645, 
Marblehead, on the strength of its superiority in 
the fishing industry, in 1648, Topsfield in 1650, and 
Beverly in 1668. 

Salem as considered within its present bounds 
was first settled upon the North River. Reduced 
to its simplest terms it began to develop its extra- 
ordinary resources as a port. Just how the port 
counted in those roadless days can be made out 
from an existing letter written, in 1631, by Mr. 
Endecott to Mr. Winthrop, already settled in Bos- 
ton upon the Shawmut i^eninsula, in which he re- 
grets his inability to be present at the Court, to 
which end, he says: "I put to sea yesterday and was 
driven back again, the wind being stiff against us. 
And there being no canoe or boat at Saugus," he 
explains, as if to light our vision of the case, " I 
must have been constrained to go to the Mystic and 
thence about to Charlestown, which at that time, 
durst not be so bold, my body being at present in 
an ill condition to wade, or take cold, and therefore 
I desire you to pardon me." And for the hazards 
of travel by land and sea we read at about this same 
time, or at any rate shortly after the settlement of 
Boston, of an adventurous company making a four 
days' trip from Salem to see the new plantation, 



SALEM OF THE WITCHES 239 

and upon their safe arrival home again they fell 
upon their knees and thanked God for preserv- 
ing them through the peril and dangers of their 
journey*! 

I should like then, to take my loiterers on yachts, 
or schooners, in the old way through one of the 
several channels noted by Nathaniel Bowditch, in 
his directions for sailing into Salem, according to 
his beautifully clear chart of the harbour. We 
should then get the, true impression of the ancient 
city, all its factors depending upon their relation to 
the sea, and its arms, which hold the limited area 
within a close embrace. We could still land from 
the safe and convenient harbour at the old Derby 
wharf, the centre of mercantile activities in the days 
when Salem was one of the leading American ports. 

Salem could be approached handsomely on both 
sides of the narrow peninsula, either from the har- 
bour direct or from the wide North River, now re- 
duced to a mere waterway, to take the ebb and 
flow of the tide, but in those days navigable as far 
inland as Peabody. As it originally developed in 
relation to its port, Salem residences were so 
])lanted that their gardens ran down to the water 
fronts, while Essex Street meandered through the 
rear end of the lots which fronted on the rivers. 
An arm of the harbour known as the South River, 



240 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

frequently alluded to in the old writings, wandered 
out towards South Salem, part of its ancient bed 
now covered by the railway station and tracks. 
Washington Street was the first to be laid out; it 
was foiu- rods wide and formed the connection be- 
tween the " ways that bordered the North and 
South Rivers." 

Down to 1774 most of the dwellings were of 
wood and a few of the very oldest are still stand- 
ing, presenting such odd architectural features as 
the overhanging second story with the curious 
" drops " depending from the corner posts, and the 
excessively pointed ends brought out with such ex- 
travagance in the House of Seven Gables, so called, 
on the water front, at the head of Turner Street. 
This house, originally built at some most remote 
date for Salem, had been altered and modernized 
into a mere semblance of its past or for that matter 
its present form, before the time that Hawthorne 
formed his slight connection with it as a visitor 
there to his cousin. Miss Ingersoll. It has been 
made in its second remodelling, as one might say, 
a notorious example of reconstituted antiquity, the 
architect of its "reconstruction" havingquite let him- 
self go in the matter of tearing out and building up 
in response to the popular demand for a peg upon 
which to hanff Hawthorne's delightful romance. 



SALEM OF THE WITCHES 2^1 

The irresistable and deliberate mecJiancete of 
Henry James' reference to "the shapeless object 
by the waterside," visiting Salem in his most per- 
verse and wilfully detached mood, has yet a deli- 
cious reactionary appeal to the anarchist in us all. 
Buried as they are in his notes upon America re- 
visited, this author's little liked and little read, yet 
so subtle and, in part, so true, diatribe against the 
crudities of his native land — felt by him, as one 
senses, with the poignancy of an inalienable native 
— have almost the quality of impressions written 
for his eye alone, the sharp, remorseless point of 
his irony so neatly and artfully concealed in his 
famous tournure de phrase, of which the general 
reader makes so little. " The weak, vague domi- 
ciliary presence at the end of the lane," he so won- 
derfully ventures, "may have 'been' (in our poor 
parlance) the idea of the admirable book . . . but 
the idea, that is the inner force of the admirable 
book, so vividly forgets, before our eyes, any such 
origin or reference, ' cutting ' it as a low acquaint- 
ance and outsoaring the shadow of its night, that 
the connection has turned a somersault into space, 
repudiated like a ladder kicked back from the top 
of a wall." 

The Hathaway house, better known from its 
more recent use as "the old bakeshop," moved up 



242 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

from Washington Street ^ (where it was about to be 
destroj^ed) to keep company with the Seven Gables, 
probably antedates in construction the latter, and 
is decidedly Gothic — wooden Gothic of true seven- 
teenth or even sixteenth century spirit. The Nar- 
bonne house, on Essex Street, built before 1680, is 
a perfect example of the lean-to type, preserving 
still the little shop door, once so characteristic of the 
old town. The dwelling situated in Broad Street 
opposite the western end of Burial Hill built in 
!()()(), by John Pickering, has lost through embel- 
lishment its convincing air of antiquity, but figures 
none the less as one of the earliest and queerest of 
Salem houses. It was the birthplace in 1745 of 
Timothy Pickering, the same who, as colonel of the 
First Regiment of militia, headed the assemblage at 
North Bridge, at the outbreak of the Revolution. 
This house is now occupied by the tenth generation 
in direct descent from the founder. 

The " Witch House " was built before 1635, and 
old pictures of it, made before the addition of 
the apothecary shop, which now defaces its once 
cliarming front, show a gambrel roof over an over- 
hanging second story, wide chimneys in the middle 
and a fine old garden, opening from Essex Street. 

The Essex Institute preserves a sketch of the 

* On the site of the Federal Theatre. 




BENJAMIN PICKMAN, FROM A ruKTKAlT 
IN THE ESSEX INSTITUTE, SALEM. 



BENJAMIN PICKMAN HOUSE, 1743- 

FROM A LITHOGRAPH MADE ABOUT 

1840-50. 

"pictures of the DELIGHTFUL 

MANSION SHOW IT TO HAVE BEEN 

seated within a GENEROUS 

GARDEN." 







sale:m of the witches 243 

" l^rreat house " built by Philip English, the first 
great shipping merchant of the colonies, in 1(>8.) 
and torn down in 1883. It stood upon the harbour, 
at the corner of Webb Street and a lane named after 
its owner; its gables formed perfect equilateral tri- 
angles; the roof was of wooden shingles, with dor- 
mers across the Webb Street side, the sixteen- 
paned windows built flush with the eaves, and 
the overhanging second story ornamented with a 
roAV of " drops '* or globules depending from the 
projection. 

Adjoining the Peabody ]Museum, in Essex 
Street, the distinguished gambrel roof, with varied 
dormers, of a house built by Colonel Benjamin 
Pickman in 1743, looks out over the vulgarity of the 
extinguishing row of modern shops, planted with 
singular offence straight in its fine old face. There 
is scarcelv anvthins^ left but the roof to sim'gest 
a gentleman's residence in the complete despoliation 
of this pitiful fragment: yet the archway between 
the picture gallery and the museum of the Essex 
Institute, taken from this house, speaks for the 
quality of the interior woodwork. Tradition says 
that the Pickman house was built by an English 
housewright and the interior is described as char- 
acteristic of the pre-Revolutionary period. Ben- 
jamin Pickman's fortune was made by the exporta- 



244 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

tion of codfish to the West Indies, a circumstance 
of which he was not ashamed and, in order to offset 
certain aristocratic pretentions on the part of other 
members of his family, he had set at the end of each 
stair in his hallway a carved and gilded effigy of the 
codfish in grateful acknowledgement of the source 
of his wealth. 

This quaint conceit, throw^ing a humorous light 
upon the character of Benjamin Pickman, of course 
had to come down to make room for the atrocities in 
the modern " improvements '' to the house, but with 
the exception of one of the amusing fish preserved 
in the Essex Institute, the whole stairway was trans- 
planted to the house of a descendant of Colonel 
Pickman, in Newport, Rhode Island. 

Pictures of the delightful mansion show it to 
have been seated w^ithin a generous garden, and to 
have rejoiced in fine old doorways and handsome 
windows, very much after the fashion of that tragic 
wreck, hemmed in by polyglot tenements, in Derby 
Street, said to be the oldest brick house now stand- 
ing in Salem, which brings us to the ancient heart 
of the old town, and upon which, leaning heavily 
upon romantic imagination, it may be our purpose 
to reconstruct its glorious past. 



CHAPTER XI 
THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 

If we are to catch up with the remoter Salem in 
Derby Street, it is precisely in that polyglot atmos- 
phere that the air, for our piercing, blows densest 
its haze of modern impediment. Were it not for 
the old Derby house itself, standing, though in the 
very thick, with its fine air of detachment, with- 
drawing its distinguished old features, with all the 
unruffled composure of a thoroughbred, within its 
fenced-off and gate-locked enclosure, one would be 
quite at a loss for a point of orientation. Even 
more convincing than the old thin wharf, named for 
its owner, now grass grown and idle, save as a pro- 
visional dump for shunted and demode " electrics," 
the house stands the very last of the old guard, 
casting its spell over the quarter, sounding the one 
vibrating chord to place the old pitch of neighbor- 
ing consonance. 

By what grace of unlooked-for reverence the rich 
front of the edifice is so guarded from intrusion, so 
that appearances at least are most beautifully kept 
up, one is only too thankfully grateful to inquire. 

245 



246 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

The voisinage, well described by a Boston market 
boy humorist as the "garlic section," thus decently 
kept at bay, is the result of that process of quick 
decay familiar to all American cities ; as the imports 
fell off, or were deflected by the superior attrac- 
tions of deeper harbours to accommodate boats of 
deeper draught, the movement of the town was 
away from the wharves and towards the more con- 
centrated attractions of the elaborated " common." 
If it is a choice between reconstituted antiquity, 
to which Salem is giving way ever so little, and this 
passive deterioration, one chooses, for purposes of 
present romance, the gentler unresisting state which 
grips with far more emotion the willing imagination 
than those patched and reconstructed and rehabili- 
tated " specimens " of past grandeur, supposed to 
show so 2)alpably how things used to be. Though 
its fate may be trembling in the balance, and it is 
indeed a " shame " to see gentility so shabbily re- 
duced, one cannot but be perversely grateful for 
having happened upon the expansive relic before 
its picturesque decay had been arrested by some in- 
terfering society of righteous, clean-sweeping busy- 
bodies for the pi esei*vation of its kind. If it were 
to be simply preservation of the thing, taken "as 
is," as the shopmen say, and so kept, that might be 
endured ; but as presen''ation inevitably implies res- 



THE "CAPTAINS " SALEM 247 

toration, that blackest vice of our sophisticated age, 
I, for one, say: Heaven forbid! 

The Derby house has the effect of a priceless ob- 
ject standing in artless opposition to its degraded 
surroundings, in some shabby pawnshop window. 
By no token but its own intrinsic elegance does it 
advertise its worth to the casual passer-by. To 
know it one must be a connoisseur. For such an 
one it is a complete and beautiful record of its gen- 
eration ; the moment his eye lights upon it, it picks 
itself out and stands prominently relieved against 
its unworthy background; for every other it simply 
subsides into the general grubby blur. 

Blessed relief! there was no custodian here to 
direct or accompany one's comings or goings — yet 
was access easy, by dint of smiles and gestures, 
through a tortuous back way of shambling out- 
houses, straight into the panelled "best room" of 
the ancient dwelling, which chanced for the moment 
to be bedchamber, living-room, and kitchen of a 
Polish family, in intensive occupation. With 
scarcely a deprecatory wave of the hand towards 
frothy washtubs, that irrelevant matter in colonial 
drawing-rooms was disposed of, as between women 
of the world, and one was allowed to prowl about 
irresponsibly, to disassociate the undeniable " feat- 
ures" of the simple interior from the pathetic 



248 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

squalor of its present plight; to penetrate into the 
common hall of the tenement, to view the con- 
served elegance of the original door — particularly 
to be treasured because of its oddity in having but 
eight panels within as against ten without — to in- 
spect on one's knees the exquisite carving of the 
matchless balusters, in sets of three different 
models to each step, and even to explore the upper 
stories, providentially tenantless, and very little, all 
things considered, destroyed. 

Perched here like migratory birds, as who shall 
say, there was no sense of permanence in the for- 
eign nest, obviously provisional and dependent 
upon many obscure factors of which the getting in 
hand of some sort of intelligible language stuck out 
jDrominently, as of primary importance. 

The exclusive front they had not encroached 
upon at all. The front door as my hostess demon- 
strated was securely fastened, by some power 
higher than hers, but making one's way around 
again through the earth-worn back way, one could 
enjoy at leisure the substantial beauty of the deep 
red bricks, the shingled gambrel roof, the charming 
dormers, and the characteristic door with its shut- 
tered screen protectingly folded across the famous 
ten panels. 

The simile of the migratory birds, with which the 




the richard derby huusk, l/gl, derbv street, salem. 

"the house stands the very last of the old guard, casting 

its spell over the quarter." 













iliiifitfiliiiafttettttMiiiiSd 



te 



DOORWAY OF THE RICHARO DERHY HOUSE. 

"THE ORIGINAL POOR — FARTKILARLY TO BE TREASIREP CECAISE OK ITS 

ODDITY IN HAVING BUT EIGHT PANELS WITHIN. AGAINST TEN WITHOUT.' 




THE KXgUISITE CARVINC OK TIIK HAI.USTKRS AND NKWEI.I. POST, 
RICHARD DERKY HOUSE. 




DERBY WHARF . 
\FTER AN ETCHING BY PHILIP LITTLE. 



THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 249 

whole quarter upon further investigation proved 
fairly swarming, was to recur again and again in 
wandering through this section of the town — is it 
not in fact the history of the whole of New Eng- 
land? We see them in every place ahandoned hy 
the so-called "native," infesting literally the land, 
adapting themselves to the native leavings and 
making much of them. The New Englander's 
policy seemingly was always merely to take the 
cream off the thing, and when the cream failed to 
ahandon the possibilities of the skimmed milk to 
whatever foreigner might come along to deal with 
the difficulties. 

Sometimes the figure shifts in my mind to the 
shape of the English sparrow, imported in good 
faith for one specific purpose, but having briefly 
achieved it, to have adapted itself with a staggering 
and altogether unlooked-for thoroughness, to have 
set about the business of breeding and perpetuation 
of its species with a fecundity undreamed of by our 
native song birds, so ruthlessly driven from their 
nesting places, and in which these blatant intruders, 
twittering or jabbering their endless jargon perch 
and plant in remorseless possession — never did it 
seem so remorseless, so unregenerate, so witlessly 
irrelevant as in this otherwise almost perfect native 
light of Salem. 



2.)0 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

Yet one may reasonably ask, was the native truly 
driven :* Did he not rather cede his rights, or even 
vacate before the advent of the despised foreigner, 
who to take up the figure, found last year's nests 
empty, resistless to what disproportionate stretch- 
ings and crowdings an alien race might subject 
them? Having themselves been the fruition of one 
such experiment, in the sense in which these old 
houses may be said to have crowded off the face of 
the earth the aboriginal wigwams; they were now, 
by a far stranger process to decline, to go to seed in 
the fantastic disguise of the polyglot air, to have 
stemmed the tide of demolition only to be caught 
in this distracting whirlpool, leading who shall say 
whither? 

The Derby house, in fine, marks the first com- 
pleted tour in the spiral of Salem's commercial 
greatness. It was built by Richard Derby, one of 
the pioneer American merchants, who was born in 
Salem in 1 712. His father, the founder of the 
family in this country, had come to Salem witliin 
a year of his more illustrious contemporary, Philip 
English (the same who built the "great house" 
on Essex Street upon the harboiu') both engaging 
in the maritime trade. 

If the all but detached scraps of land, as well as 
the islands, upon which the Salem " town " was 



THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 2.51 

scattered within its early boundaries, found their 
common means of intercommunication to be the 
water horses, of which Iligginson wrote, we should 
picture the water in those days as peopled rather 
than the land. In fact to get the true joy of New 
England we have constantly to reverse the usual 
landsman's standpoint. If Provincetown is for us 
a jumping-off place, it was for our forefathers most 
valuably a jumping-on place; and so the settle- 
ments at first but fringed the indented coast of New 
England, everything really valuable coming for 
them out of the sea, or across it, at innumerable 
tangents. An old writer speaks charmingly of the 
rude gondolas of the settlers coursing between the 
varied centres and representing for a simple agra- 
rian folk that same indwelling maritime spirit 
which gradually transformed the rude fishermen of 
the Adriatic lagoons into merchant princes trading 
with the Eastern Empire, as the merchants of 
Salem were destined to trade with the farthest 
Orient. 

Salem's trade began with the West Indies in 1670, 
the year that Philip English arrived, from the Isle 
of Jersey, to become at once the commanding figure 
in the seafaring history of his time. The staple ex- 
port of the first years was dried cod — thus the 
basis of Salem's foreign trade was like that of 



252 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Venice, the furnishing of salt fish to Cathohc coun- 
tries — a trade which, one thing leading to another, 
developed into the import of silks and spices from 
the farthest reaches of the Orient. 

The conditions of the time presented every ob- 
stacle to the dashing young mariners it engendered. 
Navigation as a science was but in its infancy, 
ships were small and unseaworthy, charts few and 
primitive ; added to the common dangers of the sea 
piracy, in its most flagrant form, flourished on the 
high seas, while the frequent wars made the ships 
of almost any nation the rightful prey of an en- 
emy's men-of-war. England's Acts of Trade placed 
heavy restrictions upon commerce which was car- 
ried on at last in defiance of the rules of war and at 
untold hazards and risks. On land there were the 
hostile Indians to be dealt with, added to all of 
which was the uncanny complication of the witch- 
craft delusion, imported in all its savagery from 
the mother country, and then at full-tide. 

The cod disposed of the vessels returned laden 
with sugar and molasses, of which the growing 
superfluity led to the manufacture of rum, in 
Salem, and thus was added another product for ex- 
portation. We read of ships taking cargoes of fish, 
lumber, and rum from Salem to Cadiz; loading 
mules at Tangiers for the West Indies, and return- 



THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 2.53 

ing to Salem with sugar and molasses. From such 
simple commerce was the seaport of Salem built 
upon, were the first fortunes derived, and by the 
end of the seventeenth century we find the scattered 
wilderness settlement concentrated along the har- 
bour over which the spacious mansions of the mer- 
chants, and their ware and counting houses, looked 
as the scene of their labours, their adventures, and 
their hopes. 

Winter Island, in the harbour, once detached but 
now connected with the peninsula, seems to have 
been the first headquarters for the fishing stage, 
and undoubtedly the first traders to foreign parts 
set sail from the old wharves about there. As early 
as 1643 we find Salem vessels in communication 
with the Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands of the 
West Indies, and with such success that in 1664 
Josselyn was able to write of Salem: "In this town 
are some very rich merchants." 

The type of vessel in these early times at this 
port was known as the "ketch," a strongly built, 
two-master of quaint appearance in so much as the 
mainmast was shorter than the foremast, and the 
foremast had square sails, while the mainmast had 
a fore and aft sail. The foundation of Salem's re- 
markable commercial prosperity was laid by 
ketches of this description, of only twenty to forty 



254. A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

tons' burden and carrying from four to six men. 
These went to Barbadoes, London, Fayal, An- 
tiiiua, and carried on some coastwise trade with 
Pennsylvania and Virginia. 

Of such a type was the ketch SpccdiccU com- 
manded by Phihp EngUsh in 1676. Yet he had so 
flourished in the first ten years after his setthng in 
Salem that he was able to build his fine house, fin- 
ished in 1683, and clearly from all accounts in its 
day quite the feature of the town. When it was 
torn down a secret chamber was discovered in the 
garret, supposed to have been built after the subsi- 
dence of the witchcraft episode as a place of tem- 
porary retreat in case of a relapse of that strange 
malady. As it stood long idle and deserted, until 
it was torn down in 1833, it may well have repre- 
sented a haunted house since both its master and 
mistress had in the old days been cried against as 
witches and obliged to flee the town for a time. 

At this time Philip English was at the height of his 
prosperity, which made his case the more conspicu- 
ous. He owned a wharf and warehouse on the Neck, 
twenty-one vessels, and foiu'teen buildings in the 
town, and shortly after he was permitted to return 
to Salem he sent ketches to Newfoundland, Cape 
Sable, or Arcadia to fish, shipping the products of 
the season's acti\'ity to the West Indies and to Spain. 



THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 2.55 

At about the time of his retirement from trade, 
we find Kichard Derby appearing in the records as 
master of the " slope Ranger, on a voige to Cadiz 
and JNIalaga " with a cargo of fish to be exchanged 
for fruit, oil, and handkerchiefs; later there is 
recorded a trip to St. Martin's, in the French West 
Indies, as commander of the " skoner Ranger." 
The schooner was a Gloucester invention, the first 
of that craft having been built and named in that 
later port in 1713, and first appears in the Salem 
category about the year 1720. 

Trading vessels now ^ranged from ketches of 
about fifty tons to schooners of one hundred and 
fifty, and Mr. Derby's cargoes consisted of fish 
and lumber largely. His loaded vessels would clear 
for Dominica or one of the Windward Islands of 
the British West Indies, and sail through the whole 
archipelago in quest of the most favourable mart. 
The exchange was made in the inevitable sugar and 
molasses, cotton, rum, claret, or in rice, and naval 
stores from Carolina. 

In 1755 there was granted to Richard Derby and 
his heirs the upland, beach, and flats at Palmer's 
Head, on Winter Island in Salem Harbour, for a 
wharf and warehouse, for a term of one thousand 
years at one shilling a year; but he seems to have 
made no use of the grant and soon after be- 



256 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

gan the construction of Derby wharf, from which, 
during the next fifty years, himself and his de- 
scendants sent vessels all over the world. In 1761, 
having laid up quite a fortune, retired from active 
life upon the sea, and established himself in Salem 
as a merchant and shipowner, Richard Derby built 
the old house ; built it, it was said, for his son Elias 
Hasket Derby, then a promising youth of twenty- 
two years. 

It was for Elias Hasket Derby and his genera- 
tion to build up to its greatest magnificence the 
prosperity merely outlined by their rugged progeni- 
tors. At the outbreak of the Revolutionary War 
the yoimger Derby was already a rich man, own- 
ing seven vessels in the West Indian trade. This 
trade, it is true, had been built up largely through 
feeding and supporting the French colonies during 
the Seven Years' War between Great Britain and 
France. This for some reason was not considered 
treasonable (Richard Derby was himself a member 
of the iMassachusetts Council), but was accepted as 
a sort of sporting enterprise in which great risks 
were run for enormous gains. This element of risk 
lent to the ancient commerce an epic quality that 
WTnt far to mitigate its irregularities. 

The Revolution indirectly gave the maritime 
trade of Salem its decided impetus. At the out- 




PORTRAIT OF El. IAS HASKET DERBY BY JAMES FROTHINGHAM. 
"it was FOR ELIAS HASKET DERBY AND HIS GENERATION TO BUILD UP 
TO ITS GREATEST MAGNIFICENCE THE PROSPERITY MERELY OUTLINED 
BY THEIR RUGGED PROGENITORS." 



THE Mount Vernon of salem, 

OWNED BY ELIAS HASKET DERBY ^ 

AND COMMANDED BY HIS SON, i^ 

CAPTAIN DERBY, 1 798. '^ 

FROM A WATER COLOUR BY CORNE, 

MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, ■-,_■'. .^^ y q 

SALEM. :--^ "* '^' 







THE "CAPTAIXS" SALEM 257 

break of hostilities Elias Ilaskct Derby wholly 
espoused the cause of the colonists, and under his 
leadership Salem furnished and equipped one hun- 
dred and fifty-eight privateers, carrying 2,000 guns 
and manned by over 6,000 men — a force equal to 
the population of the town. At the close of the war 
Salem found herself possessed of a swift-sailing 
fleet, too large for profitable use in the coastwise 
trade or for the short voyages hitherto undertaken 
by her merchantmen, and a larger field seemed to 
open before her. Young men fresh from the serv- 
ice were eager to embark in what promised glitter- 
ing enterprise. 

The younger Derby had boundless imagination 
and limitless ambition, and his initiative opened the 
commerce from Xew England to the famous ports 
of the East, where, while the names New York and 
Philadelphia were hardly known, Salem was sup- 
posed to be the greatest city in America. For a 
time Derby continued to send ships to the tried field 
in the West Indies, but a desire to pit his strength 
against that of England, France, and Holland who 
until now had controlled the commerce of the Far 
East, led him, in the year 1784, to send the barque 
Light Horse to Petrograd with a cargo of sugar; a 
few months later he despatched his famous ship 
Grand Turk of three hundred tons, with Jonathan 



258 A l.DirKKKK IN XKW KNC.LAM) 

luiivrsoU. captain, on the tirst voyage made by an 
^Vnioriean vossol tii tlio Capo ot" Ciood Hope, a ven- 
ture, whieli though not in itself successful, uave 
Derby an insight into the needs and conditions o{' 
trade in India, and a year hiter he cleared the same 
vessel Mith Kbenezer \Vest as captain, for a more 
extended voyage, mie oi' the tirst made by an 
American craft to tlie Isle of France. India, ami 
China. \Vest was out for nineteen months and 
returned with a famous cargo o{ tea. silks, and 
nankeens. 

As may be imagined, under such conditions the 
port o( Salem began to assume extraordinary 
cliaracter. AVharves began reaching far out into 
the harbour, warehouses began to spring up by the 
water front, counting houses along the wharves, 
and the substantial homes o^ the merchant owners 
stood back within spacious gardens on the north 
side of Derby Street, overlooking the scene o( 
bustle and activity. 

In the absence oi' railroads the streets were alive 
with vehicles, loadeil with goods {'ov all parts o\' the 
country, brought from lands lying in the remotest 
quarters of the globe. Salem merchants almost 
monopolized the commerce oi' the Kast — her ware- 
houses were stocked witli silks from India, tea from 
Chhia, pepper from Sumatra, gum copal from Zan- 



THE "CAPTAINS " SAI.EM 259 

zibar, spices from Batavia, cotton from Bombay, 
iron, (luck, and hemp from Gottenburg and Petro- 
gv'dd, wines from Madeira. Salem, the clearing 
liouse for immigration, had become the distributing 
centre for im])orts for the entire country. 

If there could be a doubt as to Salem's commer- 
cial im])ortance at the close of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, from the end of the Revolution to the em- 
bargo which preceded the War of 1812, when she 
was at the height of her prestige as a port, there is 
always tlie informal strong room of the adjacent 
Custom House to speak in figures upon the busi- 
ness done at this port. There piles upon piles of 
dusty records, tied together with the traditional 
ribbons of the period, may be consulted for verifi- 
cation, while the entry books kept in the ornamental 
script of the time present the sums total of the reve- 
nue here received in convenient form. 

Here are the records of the returns from the 
secret voyage made by Captain Jonathan Carnes to 
Sumatra in 1795 in search of pepper. He sailed 
under orders from Jonathan Peele, a merchant, to 
whom he had confided his knowledge that wild 
]:)epper was obtainable along the northwest coast 
of Sumatra. The ship was the Rajah, loaded with 
brandy, gin, iron, tobacco, and dried fish to be 
bartered for the pepper, and Captain Carnes was 



260 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

absent from Salem eighteen months, during which 
no one had news of his vessel until she sailed into 
port with her cargo of wild pepper in bulk which, 
according to the books and the well-preserved 
story, yielded a profit of seven hundred per cent. 

Jonathan Carnes made a second trip in the Rajah 
and returned from Sumatra with one hundred and 
fifty thousand pounds of pejDper before the rival 
captains ran him down and discovered his secret. 
After the source of the precious condiment was 
found out pepper became one of the most profit- 
able of Salem's commodities and the Custom 
House records show that down to the year 1845 
about two hundred vessels so laden returned from 
the port of Sumatra. 

While the wharves M'ere crowded with vessels 
discharging cargoes gathered from remote places 
or loading the native products for another venture 
across the seas, the town was busily keeping pace 
with the details of enterprise. The vicinity of the 
harbour presented the quaint vision of sail lofts, 
ship chandlers' shops, and the swinging quadrants 
before the locations of the nautical instrument 
makers. Taverns, selling the good old New Eng- 
land rum, were full of the teamsters from inland 
and of sailors lounging about restlessly between 
voyages. The shops along Derby Street began to 




OLD WHARFS, SALEM 
FROM AN ETCHING BY PHILIP LITTLE, 



^^*M^ 




COASTERS, SALEM HARBOl'K . 
FROM AN ETCHING BY PHILIT 
LITTLE. 



' ■^■■•■MtMtfaMiMMMMil^ni&te^^ -^sc ^:'''^-.^. 



THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 261 

take on a slightly foreign air and an occasional par- 
rot or monkey screeching at the doors lent a pe- 
culiar zest to the minor retail trade. 

Elias Hasket Derby, AVilliam Gray, and Joseph 
Peabody were the three most prominent merchants 
of the period of greatest activity; between them 
they owned the larger part of the shipping of 
Salem. Each of them dm'ing his life accumulated a 
great j)roperty. In 1807 IMr. Gray owned fifteen 
ships, seven barques, thirteen brigs, and one 
schooner which equalled about one fourth of the 
shipping of Salem. During the early years of the 
nineteenth century Joseph Peabody built and 
owned eighty-three ships which he freighted him- 
self and sent to the various ports of Europe, Cal- 
cutta, Sumatra, and Petrograd. He employed all 
told about 7,000 seamen and advanced to the rank 
of captain or master many who had entered his 
sendee as boys. 

With the revival of the American shipping in- 
dustry it is interesting to note an advertisement 
published in the Salem Gazette of November 23, 
1798, urging the people to show their patriotism 
and help in the building of a ship to defend the 
country. The nation appeared to be on the eve of 
a war with France and was without a navy and 
congress had passed an act authorizing the presi- 



202 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGEAXD 

dent to accept such vessels as citizens might huiUl 
for the national service, to be paid for in six per cent 
stock. 

Elias Hasket Derby and William Gray each 
subscribed $10,000, AVilliam Orne and John Norris 
$.5,000 each, and in a short time the full sum neces- 
sary was raised. The population of Salem at the 
time M'as about 9,500 and the total cost of the frig- 
ate EssClV, which the town built for the nation in 
1790, was $95,000, so that its cost averaged for the 
little community $10 a head. She was built on 
Winter Island and Enos Briggs, who had built 
many ships for ^Ir. Derby, was the builder. It was 
he also who inserted the quaint advertisement in the 
Gazette calling upon every man in the possession 
of a white oak tree to hurry the timber down to 
Salem. Four trees were asked for the keel, which 
was to measure one hundred and forty-six feet 
in length and hew sixteen inches square. The 
Essc.v proved the fastest ship in the navy and 
captured property to the amount of two million 
dollars. Admiral Farragut served on the Esse^v 
as midshipman. 

A stone's throw from the railway station, in an 
antiquated market place, stands the old Town Hall 
and ^larket House of Salem, built in 1816. The 
hall was used for Town ^Meeting until Salem was 



THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 263 

incorporated as a city, in 1836, and was first opened 
to the public July 8, 1817, when President Monroe 
visited the town. The land on which the building 
stands was given to the city by the heirs of the 
Derby estate for a permanent market and the 
locality was called Derby Square. 

On this site stood for a brief period the finest 
house that Salem ever knew, the famous mansion 
erected by Elias Hasket Derby at the close of his 
life, when he was counted the richest man in Amer- 
ica. The house, of which no record fails to mention 
its amazing cost, seems to have marked an epoch in 
Salem. It marked the "arrived" rich man — the 
man of means, the man of leisure, the man who 
sent his sons to college, and who, if he sent them to 
sea at all, did so as captain or supercargo of one of 
his own ships, and in the care of a " nin-se " — as the 
bluff sailors rudely called the experienced mariner 
who accompanied the voyage and who was to all 
intents and purposes in command. 

Felt's Annals of Salem (second edition) con- 
tains a picture of the Derby house and the plans of 
the mansion are preserved in the collections of the 
Essex Institute. These were made by Salem's chief 
architect and wood carver, Samuel Mclntire, in the 
flower of his life; they show a three-story dwelling, 
of the square type, built of wood, with ornate 



264 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

doorway, columns, fan and side lights, pilasters, 
charming windows, carved cornice, festooned frieze, 
and a railed roof surmounted by a cupola. The 
house faced the water and the gardens, sloping 
down to the South River, were beautifully terraced 
and planned by George Heussler, an Alsatian, the 
first landscajje gardener of the locality. He had 
come out to Newburyport from Haarlem, in 1780, 
and began to work in the employ of John Tracy of 
that town. 

Derby at the time of the building of his grand 
house was living on Washington Street, whence he 
moved into the new house in 1799, and died a few 
months later. His heirs finding the maintenance of 
such a place beyond their means, the house was 
closed, and, since no purchaser could be found for 
it, Mclntire, who had put some of the best of his 
creative work into it, persuaded Captain Cook, 
whose house on Federal Street was in process of 
erection, to buy the lovely gateposts and much of 
the interior woodwork to be built into his simpler 
dwelling, where they may still be admired. Finally, 
in 1814, the house was torn down and the site pre- 
sented to the town. 

As an interesting expression of a sort of con- 
sciousness of something of their own power and im- 
portance the captains founded, in the year 1799, the 



THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 265 

Salem East India JNIariiie Society, an organization 
in which membership ^^'as restricted to masters or 
commanders, factors or supercargoes of any Salem 
vessel, who had navigated the seas near the Cape of 
Ciood Hope or Cape Horn. The objects were three- 
fold: first, to assist widows and children of de- 
ceased members ; second, to collect facts and obser- 
vations tending to the improvement and security 
of navigation; and third, to form a museum of 
natural and artificial curiosities, particularly such as 
were foiuid beyond the Cape of Good Hope and 
Cape Horn. At about this time also the mariners 
of Salem began to write detailed journals of their 
voyages to be deposited with this society — but now 
in the safe keeping of the Essex Institute. These 
thick manuscript volumes, frequently amplified log 
books, written after the captains had returned to 
port, form an imique treasure for Salem, being the 
autographic history at first hand of one of the most 
adventurous chapters of American achievements; 
to them have been added, as the commerce declined, 
the original logs and journals of the voyages, 
proudly contributed by the descendants of the 
mariners. 

It is rather interesting to reflect that the present 
dignified structure, containing the amplified col- 
lections of the East India Marine Society, was 



266 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

erected in 1824, when the population of Salem 
numbered but 12,000 souls. From the foundation 
of the society until the collections were given in 
charge of the Peabody Museum, in 1867, three 
hundred and fifty masters and supercargoes of 
Salem had qualified for membership. 

While the whole of the Peabody Museum is 
vastly creditable to its native air, containing as it 
does many unique features, it is the Marine Room 
that throws most light upon its most appealing 
period. On one side of the room we have the por- 
traits of the captains and prominent shipowners 
and merchants, on the other side the portraits of 
their ships, this latter forming an unique and price- 
less collection. Most of the ships were painted in 
foreign ports, many bear the signature of Anton 
Roux, of Marseilles, others were painted at Naples, 
and these are spirited sketches quite in sympathy 
with the vigour and enterprise of the time. 

In a case in the centre of the room are the few 
treasures presented by Captain Jonathan Carnes 
on the return from one of his several voyages to 
Sumatra, which foimed the nucleus of the collec- 
tions. On the wall hangs a most thrilling por- 
trait of Captain John Carnes, an earher figure in 
Salem life, standing, spyglass in hand, upon the 
quarter-deck, against a brilliant passage of sky 




CAPTAIN JOHN CARNES. 

MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. 




CAPTAIN BENJAMIN CARPENTER, 
MARINE ROOM. PEABOOV MlSEfM. 




CAPTAIN BENJAMIN" CROWNINSHIELD. COMMANDER OF ClcOplltra's Borgc 

ON HER MEDITERRANEAN VOYAGE IN 1817. 

FROM A PASTEL COPY OF A MINIATURE^ MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM 



Cleopatra's Barge, built by 

RETIRE BECKET FOR CAPTAIN 
GEORGE CROWNINSHIELD. 
FROM A WATER COLOUR BY 
ANTOINE VITTALUGA. GENOA, 
1817. MARINE ROOM, 
PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. 





LETTER OF MARQUE BRIG Grand Turk, 1815. 

FROM A WATER COLOUR BY ANTON ROUX. 
MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, SALEM. 



THE "CAPTAINS'" SALEM 267 

and sea upon which sail two full-rigged ships flying 
the iVnierican colours. 

The portrait of Elias Hasket Derby, by James 
Frothingham, shows a vigorous type of merchant, 
seated before his table, a chart spread before him 
and folded close at hand the sailing papers relative 
to the Grand Turk, which vessel may be seen pic- 
tured upon the wall beside his chair. This it will 
be remembered was the first American vessel to the 
Cape of Good Hope. Across the room is a de- 
lightful water colour of the Mount Vernon of 
Salem, commanded by Elias, Jr., on the last enter- 
prise engaged in by his illustrious father, that of 
sending a cargo of sugar and coffee to the Med- 
iterranean ports, and firing a broadside upon a 
fleet of French and Algerian pirates which had 
attempted to block her path. 

This picture was the work of a Michele Corne, 
of Naples, described in William Bentley's Diary 
as "an Italian painter in the town, introduced by 
Mr. Derby." He instructed the children of Salem 
in drawing, and Mr. Bentley who seems to have 
been quite an amateur in painting and the arts em- 
ployed him in the restoration of some of the old 
portraits in the town, now in the possession of the 
Essex Institute. 

Mr. Bentley also describes the painter's efforts 



2t>8 A T.C^ITKKFK 1\ XFAV KXaiAXD 

to introduce the tomato to tlie American palate 
but adds tliat " He tinds it ditHcult to persuade us 
even to taste of it. after all his praise of it." 

Captain Benjamin Carpenter, one of the found- 
ers of the stx*iety, is pivsenteil standinij with one 
hand upon a globe, in a commanding attitude which 
expresses his complete mastery of navigation and a 
dauntless spirit of adventure. He eonmianded the 
tirst vessel in the Revolution which carried back tt^ 
Kngland captured British otticers. concluding a 
ditticult examination by the lords of the admiralty 
with creilitable cleverness. His log of the Hercules. 
dated 170*2. is a model of its type, elalKtrately il- 
lustrated with pen drawings of harbours, landfalls, 
and ports, made by its author. 

As an instance of the growing luxury of the 
Salem merchants in the beginning of the nineteenth 
century, the Marine Boom preserves two water 
colour painting's of tlie famous pleasure yacht 
Cleopatra's Barge, the plaything of its owner, the 
eccentric Gforge Crowninshield. launched in Salem 
Harbour in the winter of 1810. Intendeil as the 
future residence of its master, this yacht, the tirst 
ot' its kind, represented an expenditure of more 
than one half the total cvst of Klias Hasket Derby's 
famous house. It was built by Retire Be^^ket. an 
ex| ert shipwriglit ot' Salem in his yard at the lower 



THE CAPTAINS'" SALEM 269 

eiul of Derby Street, and was construeted and ap- 
pointed throughout in a manner eonsidered truly 
niagnitieent in its time. It had an adventurous 
history and at one time Avas iniplieated in a sup- 
posed plot to reseue Napoleon from St. Helena. 
After the death of its owner Cleopatra's Barge was 
dismantled and entered the merehant serviee and 
later beeame the private yaeht of King Kanie- 
hameha of the Hawaiian Islands, imder the name 
of Ilaahco o Ilaicaii (Pride of Hawaii) until 
wrecked on one of the islands in 18*24. 

The intermarriage of the Derhv and Crownin- 
shield families had provided the generation to which 
CTCcn-ge belonged with a very pretty fortune. He 
was the eldest of six brothers all of whom followed 
the sea as boys and of whom five lived to become 
commanders while still under age. The house built 
by Benjamin W. Crowninshield, who became secre- 
tary of the navy under Madison and Monroe, 
stands excellently preserved as the Home for Aged 
AVomen in Derby Street, next to the Custom 
House, a monument to the substantial fortune of 
the family. When Monroe made his tour of the 
North, in 1817. this house was placed at his disposal 
during the four days that he remained in wSalem. 
and a great banquet was given in his honour, in the 
southeast room, attended bv Commodore Perrv 



270 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

and other distinguished men. This room is hand- 
some and typical. It contains one of ^Iclntire's 
celebrated mantels and imitates the amusing device 
of the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles, that of re- 
peating the front windows on the back wall, sub- 
stituting mirrors for the transparent glass. • 

Where now an occasional slow barge slides slug- 
gishly to port at the far end of Derby Street, there 
to discharge its load of coal, stands the recon- 
structed Crowninshield Wharf, the last one to 
find occupation in Salem. At this end of town, 
too, were situated, upon Winter Island and the 
Neck, the ship-yards — beyond these again at the 
Willows, the forts of the Revolution and the 
Civil War. 



CHAPTER XII 
SAMUEL McIXTIRE'S SALEM 

Salem, with the dehcate detachment of some fine 
old lady, bred in the ancient school of manners, 
only gains the more reverential attention by re- 
serving her choicer aspects to the loiterer who goes 
in quest of them. The ancient school of manners, 
as one remembers, decreed emphatically that fine 
ladies' faces were not to be " made common " by 
too frequent mingling with the vulgar street crowd ; 
and so, one seemed to make out, when, the shipping 
having failed, the town, with its new departure into 
shoemaking or whatever, felt the need of a " busi- 
ness centre " in the midst of all the horrid novelties 
of its progressive movement, the fine old faces all 
too readily gave way. 

The two or three pathetic cases of those who 
weakly determined to brave it out, show sadly 
enough how ground was held only at the sacrifice of 
all the code insisted upon by the old school of man- 
ners; how everything considered exquisite in the 
old time was cheapened and defaced and compro- 
mised, as, for instance, by the terrible glass fronts 

271 



272 A LOITERER IX XE\V ENGLAND 

imposed upon the Pickiiian house, still standing he- 
side the Peahody 3Iuseuni, or hy the excessively 
low company kept hy the once fine old Derhy house 
across the way. 

The last, recognizahle, upon scrutiny, by the fes- 
toons looped with classic grace, across the up])er 
and still exposed part of its white fac^ade, holds 
within its once perfect interior enough of the fine 
flavour of the past to give the explorer quite the 
emotion of an archaeologist delving in the ruins of 
the Palatine Hill, so supremely overlaid by the 
base use of deteriorating tenants is the whole ex- 
quisite thing. 

There is, for instance, an old winder stairway ^ — 
there were once two — whose wide, graceful ciu've 
and slender rail have been studied by architects as of 
type so perfect as almost to defy copy. From some 
of the mantelpieces the central sculptured panel 
has been torn, either by vandals for firewood or by 
treasure seekers who presumably saw no sin in ap- 
propriating what was all too inevitably going to 
rack and ruin before their eyes ; ^ but others remain 
to speak for the chaste beauty and elegance of the 
type. The elliptical arches in the hall, their under 
side rich in Grecian fretwork, the panelling, the 

' I have since learneil that the panel was torn out by the irate proprie- 
tor of the estate, "because somebody wanted to buy it "(O- 




'C^'>./y ^, •-..,. ,4.. 



MIMTIKES . XIGINAL ELEVATION OF THE 
EZEKIEL HERSEY DERBY HOUSE. 180O. 






MANTEL IN THE EZEKIEL HERSEY 
DERBY HOUSE SHOWING CENTRAL 
SCULPTURED PANEL, BEFORE 
DESTRUCTION. 




SAMl'KL MclNTlUKS SALK.M 273 

Mainsooting, with hand-tooled moiildiiio-s carried 
throughout the existing remnant, all bespeak the 
best Salem style, the style of which Samuel ^Ic- 
Intire. as the most eelebratetl carver and architect 
of the tiiwn. was the ftninder anil inspiration. 

Of the desecrated front there is fortunately pre- 
served ^Iclntire's original elevation, together with 
the neat plans of the interior, and this shows an ex- 
quisite early type of modern town house, square, 
with the railed roof and chimneys at each side, while 
the facade of woml. its level surface varietl by the 
application o{ plain pilasters, connected by ilainty 
festoons and straight hanging garlands, the win- 
dows shaped and spaced with art. the doorway ex- 
ceedingly graceful and beautiful, and the whole 
beauty o{ the front punctuated as it were by live 
rosettes placed at equal distances above the iirst 
story with indescribable charm. This third Derby 
house was soon after its erection, in 1800. the resi- 
dence of Ezekiel Hersey Derby, a son oi Klias 
Hasket and a grandson of the builder of the old 
gambrel roof brick house in Derby Street. 

If Richard was to do so well for his boy old 
Colonel Pickman had done as much for his, and a 
famous house built for Benjamin Pickman, Jr.. in 
ITtU. was lately taken down to make room for the 
^Masonic Temple on Washington Street. Later 



274 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Elias Hasket was to live there, until his removal 
just before his death to the mansion in Derby 
Square, and it was during his occupancy that the 
handsome cupola, designed by jNIcIntire and now 
preserved in the grounds of the Essex Institute, 
was added. This cupola is interesting for its 
arched ceiling containing frescoes by Corne, depict- 
ing several vessels of the Derby fleet, and the cir- 
cular hole in the blind, made to hold the end of old 
]Mr. Derby's telescope when he mounted the dome 
to sight an incoming vessel. Perhaps this rich old 
man tried out the genius of his architect upon the 
changes to the Pickman house, for we know that 
INIcIntire added the balustrade to the roof, the 
Ionic pilasters to the facade and the coach house 
entire, with its carved eagle and festooned draperies 
since transferred to a barn in another street. 

John Rogers, the sculptor, was born in the old 
Pickman house, and the Essex Institute preserves 
an amusing collection of the once famous Rogers' 
groups, so expressive of the thought and occur- 
rences of their day. 

Stepping oflp the train and weathering the anach- 
ronous Norman portal, there is nothing in tlie im- 
mediate prospect of the invaded Salem to suggest 
the cool, clean succession of closely related period 
houses and gardens, the whole neighbourhoods of 



SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 275 

perfectly intact " tone " standing in secure homoge- 
neity in the native air and still held (blessed con- 
trast to our national disloyalty to the ancestral 
taste!) largely by lineal descendants of the "cap- 
tains " who built them in the most expansive days 
of Salem's maritime affluence. 

The undermining of Washington Street, its 
whole length given to the steam road's tunnel, left 
standing nothing of the once stately buildings which 
made the ancient charm of this earliest thorough- 
fare — ^the road, four rods wide, laid out in Ende- 
cott's day, to connect the ways that led past the old 
mansions facing the two rivers. 

We know that, in the old days, a very consider- 
able architectural effect must have been gained by 
the erection of the Court House, one of the few 
public buildings designed by Samuel INIcIntire, 
v.'hase genius was chiefly expended upon Salem's 
homes. Tt was executed, from JNIcIntire's designs, 
by Daniel Bancroft, of whose skill at present all too 
little is known, and the expense of the building was 
borne jointly by the county of Essex and the town 
of Salem. 

Several old steel engravings and a contemporary 
oil painting, in the collections of the Essex Insti- 
tute, show the beautiful peace of the street in those 
days, with a compact square building, with brick 



•27i> A I.OITEREK IX NKW EXGLAXD 

walls and its roof surmounted by a high cupola, oc- 
cupying literally the middle of the way. On the 
front or southern end was a balcony opening into 
the second story, supported by a row of Tuscan pil- 
lars, and under the balcony were wide stone steps 
leading through a porch into the lower hall. 

The Court House M'as built in the years 178.5-1780 
and was still a novelty of which the state was proud 
when a very lovely engraving o{ it appeared in the 
^larch number of the 3Iassacliusetts ^lagazine for 
the year 1790, together with a short article describ- 
ing the large court hall as " the best constructed 
room of any in the commonwealth and perhaps not 
exceeded by any in the United States." A Vene- 
tian window behind the judge's seat, this writer ex- 
plains, afforded "" a beautiful prospect of a line 
river, extensive, well cultivated fields and groves, in 
addition to which the passhig and repassing of ves- 
sels continually in the river [made] a pleasing 
variety." 

When Washington made his tour of the X'orth in 
1780 he was presented to the people of Salem from 
the balcony of this Court House, a ceremony de- 
scribed by Felt, in his Anuah, as a memorable dem- 
onstration, the street being thronged with thou- 
sands of eager and enthusiastic patriots. The story 
is. in Salem, that ^Iclntire took advantage of this 



SAMUEL McIXTlKE'S SALEM 277 

occasion to seat himself in a window on Washing- 
ton Street from which the president on the halcony 
was readily visible and to make the sketch from 
which the profile medallion carved in wood was 
later developed for the arched entrance to the 
Salem Common. By most Washington portrait 
collectors, however, it is considered an adaptation 
of Wright's profile. 

Washington Street now records the brutal efface- 
ment of every related object of a whole precious 
past. Until 1837 Salem was the terminus of the 
Old Eastern Railroad, but when the tracks were 
extended to its second stage, at Portland, Elaine, 
and the tunnel was built, the Court House was the 
first of the sacrifices entailed, standing as it did 
just over its projected route upon a slight emi- 
nence dominating the little town. 

To catch uj) with the retreat of the best of the 
period houses and gardens the loiterer should mount 
the slight rise of land, over the hollow of the short, 
black tunnel, to Federal Street, and turn to the left 
past the granite grimness of the modern court 
house and, passing up a pretty shaded street, he 
will shortly come to a large white frame dwelling, 
in the pink of condition, which he will know at once 
for the Peirce house, " the finest wooden house in 
New England" — the family still in residence but 



278 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

the estate taken over by the Essex Institute for 
perpetual preservation. 

The Peirce house is typical of pretty nearly 
everything that is interesting, historical, and beau- 
tiful in Salem. It might indeed be called the 
clou of the collection. Mclntire worked eighteen 
years upon it making it the masterpiece of his tal- 
ent, the complete record of his development. But 
this is not the most interesting fact about the old 
place ; that, I take to be, the perfect elements it here 
consen^es of the picture of its builder, Jerathmeel 
Peirce, the wealthy East India merchant, living in 
luxury upon the banks of the old North River; of 
the preserved forecourt behind the house, the orig- 
inal gate, which lent distinction to the famous ter- 
raced garden it disclosed and protected, and 
through which Jerathmeel passed daily during forty- 
four years to his wharf and warehouse on the then 
navigable stream. 

Except that Jerathmeel (I like that name) is 
dead and the river is buried, all the elements of the 
scene are complete. The more complete, as I seem 
to feel it, because the old shut-off garden has 
been allowed to fall into picturesque decay. When 
I Avalked through it closing the gate in the wall be- 
hind me, I seemed to enter another age. The 
straight old path led over crunching gravel, as if 




MANTEL SHOWING LANDSCAPE PAPER. CAPTAIN COOK S HOUSE, IOO4. 
THE MANTEL IS FROM THE OLD DERBY HOUSE, 1799- THE PAPER DEPICTS 
THE PANORAMA OK PARIS, AND WAS MADE IN 182O. 




ENTKANCE FOKCH TO THE CEORGIAN SIDE OF JEKATH >!'^-F: I 
SAMUEL XIIXTIRE, ARCHITECT, 1~S2. 



KNOCKER TO THE GEORGIAN POOR 
OK JERATHMEEL PEIRCE HOUSE. 





GEORGIAN PARLOR, 1/82, OF JERATHMEEI. PEIRCE HOUSE. 




MANTEL AND MIRROR IN THE ADAMS PARLOUR, JERATHMEEL PEIRCE HOUSE. 
SAMUEL m'iNTIRE, ARCHITECT, 180O. 



SAMUEL MclNTIRE'S SALEM 279 

impatient of deviations, to the now boarded end. 
Fruit trees were in luxuriant bloom, exotic plants 
struggled against weeds, and the spare branches of 
the vines which straggled upon the trellis of the 
covered walk were just bursting fatly into bud. It 
is a very steep garden and seated at the toj) of the 
box-bordered j)ath, upon some worn steps, one could 
project the mind's eye beyond the boarded end and 
figure the bustle and confusion upon the wharf be- 
yond, the landing of fragrant spices and delicate 
fabrics, the loading of the famous rum; while over 
all, controlling, urging, "speeding up," as the vul- 
gar current phrase is, recalcitrant stevedores, old 
Jerathmeel himself, tall, broad of back, and with the 
arrested dissolution of a very fine figure, I seemed 
to picture him, the very spirit and breath and vigour 
of the enterprise. 

I hated to think of him full of years and ruined, 
as we read, by the embargo and non-intercoiu'se 
acts which imposed such grave hardships on New 
England merchants; and I even felt a certain im- 
patience with the kindly friend, Johonnot, who 
really after all only half did things when he ])ur- 
chased the house, when it was forced upon the mar- 
ket, and occupied it for the brief remainder of his 
own lifetime, to bequeath it with a generosity all 
too deliberated and deferred to Jerathmeel's de- 



280 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

scendants — the old gentleman having promptly 
died from the shock and humiliation of the separa- 
tion, with, as was said, a broken heart. 

We possessed in America, writes a recent critic, 
no architect before Charles Biilfinch, "a name 
which marks the close of the great period in Amer- 
ican architecture." The peculiar suddenness of this 
sentence makes me think of an e^iitaph I once saw 
on the tombstone of a very young person in a 
Pennsylvania-Dutch burying-ground : " If I am so 
soon done for, what was I begun for?" But ac- 
cepting its grain of truth, this frank statement 
should make us the more willing to concede that 
Samuel JNIcIntire, the builder of the Peirce house, 
and the wood carver of Salem, was not of that 
profession, as we now understand it. From ex- 
pert shipbuilders, skilled in the finer aspects of 
that trade, the ^woodworkers of Salem passed, after 
the shipping failed, readily enough to the occupa- 
tion of housewrights, as the master builders of the 
colonial period were content to call themselves. 

JNIcIntire lived so modestly, working wholly for 
his native town that it is only very lately that his 
name has been recognized beyond the limits of his 
immediate field. He was born, lived, and died in 
Salem, so far as we know never aspiring to build 
beyond the confines of his locality, except in the one 



SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 281 

recorded instance when he siihmitted plans in com- 
petition for the national capitol, and of which the 
originals are preserved by the Maryland Historical 
Society. Salem then, all satisfactorily for the stu- 
dent, contains every record but one of this interest- 
ing life. There is the much-remodelled gambrel 
roof house on Mill Street, a house built by his 
father, in which he was born in 1757. There is the 
modest three-story house in Summer Street which 
he bought after his marriage; and there is the 
excellent slate in the Charter Street Burying 
Ground which marks his grave and from which 
we learn that he died in 1811, at the age of fifty- 
four years. The entirely legible inscription, re- 
cently recut, records that Samuel Mclntire was 
distinguished for genius in architecture, sculpture, 
and music; that his manners were sweet and pleas- 
ing; that his life was regulated by industry and in- 
tegrity ; and that he was, in fine, a man of virtuous 
principle and unblemished conduct. 

Mclntire studied and practised wood carving 
under the local masters, but having an inborn taste 
for architecture developed and trained himself by 
the study of such books as he could rarely come by, 
devoting himself assiduously to the great classic 
masters, with whose works, notwithstanding their 
scarcity in this country, he was well acquainted. 



282 A LOITEREK IX NEW ENGLAND 

From the inventory of his estate we know that 
JNIcIntire possessed Palladio's Architecttura as 
well as works on the same subject by Ward, Lang- 
ley, and Paine and two volumes on French archi- 
tecture. His shop contained a set of tools famous 
at the time for its size and completeness — the list 
enumerates " three hundred chisels and gouges and 
forty-six moulding planes.'' While for his musical 
tastes he left " a large hand organ with ten barrels," 
a double bass, a violin and case, and a collection of 
books on music including an edition of Handel's 
Messiah. 

Salem houses are nearly all of the comfortable 
square type, structiu'ally very simple, so that their 
fame rests upon beauty of proportion and embel- 
lishments, their doorways, cornices, gateposts, and 
the elaboration of the hand-carved interior wood- 
work. The Adam Brothers' books on decoration 
appeared just after JMcIntire began work upon 
the Peirce house, which was amongst his earli- 
est commissions, and it is interesting to note that 
the west parlour which was finished in 1782, before 
the issue of the first of these books, is altogether 
different in treatment from the east parlour, done 
in 1800 when the architect was completely under 
the influence of the celebrated Scotsmen. 

The Georgian parlour, as it is designated, has 



SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALKM 283 

decided individuality and character. Mclntire 
built it when he was but twenty-five years of age so 
that it represents the purity of his youthful period. 
The chimney side of the room, according to the pre- 
vailing fashion, was solid j^anelling, a relic of the 
shij) cabin frequently seen in sea-captains' dwell- 
ings in the New England ports. The fireplace is es- 
pecially notable being set with tiles depicting scenes 
from La Fontaine's fables and provided with a 
handsome hob-grate set in soap-stone similar to one 
still standing in the house built by Captain Cook, 
farther up this street, and considered, in those days 
of wood fuel, a mad extravagance. The massive 
woodwork which connects the doors with the heavy 
cornice is remarkable in this room, and as a mark of 
age one may note the original strap hinges, the 
latches and handles all strictly of the period. 

The east parlour has been called the finest speci- 
men of Adam influence in this country and has 
been studied extensively by architects. It is a larger 
room than the Georgian drawing-room and upon it 
evidently Mclntire lavished his most loving care 
and attention. Everywhere — .in the cornice, around 
the framework of the doors and windows, border- 
ing the wainscoting, and especially the chimney 
place — one may see the exquisite effect of his 
chisels and gouges. The mantel is one of two or 



284 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

three of the very best type in Salem. Over it hangs 
the original mirror made for the spot to measure 
and imported from France. The room is particu- 
larly charming since most of the original furniture 
bought for it by Jerathmeel Peirce is there, and of 
this one notes particularly the Heppelwhite win- 
dow seats made for the four windows. 

Perhaps one of the most curious features of in- 
terior workmanship to be found in Salem is the 
Chippendale stairway in this house, made of solid 
mahogany; a device, which is practically a chair- 
back of this interesting design, alternates with four 
slender square balusters all the way up to the top 
of the house and is immensely effective. 

For the exterior, the striking features are the 
balustrade of the low hip roof and the belvedere, or 
captain's walk, from which Jerathmeel Peirce could 
sweep the horizon with his spyglass, M'hen a ship 
was overdue at his wharf, or to which, in the days 
when he followed the sea, his wife might mount and 
watch for his incoming. The fluted pilasters at the 
corners of the house, showing a free use of the Doric 
order, detract from the monotony of its lines and the 
knocker on the side doorway is famous in Salem. 
In the rear of the house, on the roof of one of the 
outbuildings, is perched one of INIcIntire's famous 
eagles, of which he made a number to be seen about 



SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 285 

the town, while this whole courtyard deserves study 
as sometliing quite typical and extraordinary in 
New England architecture, especially the sort of 
enclosed colonnade of store-rooms fitted each with 
broad doors and elliptical fan-lights running the 
breadth of the house. 

For thirty years IMcIntire set the pace for the 
architecture of Salem, designing in that time most 
of the buildings which have made it famous for the 
work of its period. The Assembly House in Fed- 
eral Street, is a fine example of Mclntire's early 
work, built in 1782. The Assembly House was 
famous in its day of public service as the scene of 
balls and receptions, and Lafayette was dined here 
during his first triumphal tour of the country, in 
1784. Washington attended a ball given in his 
honour here, in 1789. Early in its history the house 
was remodelled for a private dwelling. Its porch 
is conspicuous for a heavy grape frieze carved from 
wood, its festoons and ornamental scroll corners, 
and the elaborate wrought-iron railings. 

Again in Federal Street the famous Cook house, 
many years in building and now on the decline, 
occupied INIcIntire's genius from about the j^oint 
where he completed Jerathmeel Peirce's mansion 
until his death. He left the finish in fact to his 
brother Joseph who had been associated on the 



286 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

work as housewright and master builder. Though 
it contains many rather thrilHng details it is scarcely 
a typical house nor a complete result for our archi- 
tect. It seems that Captain Cook had some reverses 
while the building was under way and that in order 
to economize Mclntire persuaded him to purchase 
and incorporate many of the details from the Derby 
mansion about to be condemned in Derby Square, 
so that I think it is quite evident that this is what 
was originally meant to be a rather plain, square, 
frame house, elaborated a trifle incongruously with 
the " hand-me-downs " from a mansion of quite a 
different character. The house, in short, appears a 
bit over trimmed for its simple construction. The 
gate and fence posts, with their ornamental urns, 
are from the Derby house and decided the character 
of the fence and the handsome porch and doorway 
- — dishonoured, however, by a modern door — all 
charmingly harmonized by the repetition of the 
straight hanging garlands, original to the posts. An 
interesting feature of the exterior is the broad, 
fluted band which extends across the front, hold- 
ing the porch to the house. The heavy cornice 
and elaborate entablatures above the second-story 
windows intended to relieve the severity of the 
front, seem perhaps too fine for their setting, so 
that in short this house, of which one had ex- 



SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 287 

pected so much, proved in tlie reality rather a 
disappointment. 

The interior, again, has not that charm of a thing 
conceived as a whole, though its details are in spots 
quite marvellous, so marvellous in fact that mu- 
seums have become covetous of its treasures. This 
house contained some of the most extraordinary 
hand-blocked wall paper, brought over by Captain 
Cook about 1820, when he refitted the house for the 
marriage of his daughter Sally to Henry Kemble 
Oliver. The hall paper is now preserved in the 
Metropolitan Museum ; but the parlour still retains 
the French scenic design depicting the panorama 
of Paris as viewed from the Seine, a century ago, 
supposed to have been printed by Zuber, the famous 
Alsatian manufacturer. The exquisite carved 
mantel in this room is unexcelled in Salem, and 
under it the first brass hob-grate that Salem knew 
still shines in its soap-stone setting. The stairway 
is lighted by a Palladian window and the details of 
mouldings, newel, balusters, wainscot, etc., show 
that wealth of loving treatment characteristic of its 
author. 

There are many houses in Essex Street at this 
end of the town, as well as at the other, which will 
repay careful study. The porch of the Silsbee 
house (No. 380) is considered one of the best in 



288 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Salem. Here we have indeed a door worthy of 
its frame, one of many of the choice type in town, 
but surely nowhere surpassed for delicately moulded 
panels pinned down with tiny corner ornaments. 
The setting is Ionic in feeling, the fluted columns 
tapering to an acanthus leaf enrichment to support 
the capitals, while the leaded fan-light, its graceful 
lines accented at the jointures hj rosettes repeating 
the pinheads in the door panels, the sidelights, the 
exquisite taste and restraint of the details of the 
23orch, capped by a prodigy of hand-carved ball 
moulding; the whole feeling for beautifully doing 
it carried out in the balustrade over the porch and 
the wrought-iron fence, which ties the garden to the 
house and leads up to its gracious doorway, are 
things to linger long in the memor^^ This house 
was built by Mclntire in 1797. 

The Osgood house (No. 312), built in 1765, 
is of special interest as the last Salem residence 
of the celebrated mathematician and astronomer, 
Nathaniel Bowditch, one of the names that should 
not be forgotten here. Nathaniel Bowditch did 
as much as any man to reflect glory upon his 
native town and his Practical Navigator is still 
an authority in its field. " It goes," said the Lon- 
don Athenceuyn, "both in American and British 
ships, over every sea of the globe, and is probably 




PORTRAIT OF NATHANIEL BOWDITCH, BY CHARLES OSGOOD, 183S. 

MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, 

SALEM. 



THE SHIP Hercules of salem, 

OWNED BY NATHANIEL WEST AND 

COMMANDED BY HIS BROTHER, CAPT. 

EDWARD WEST, PASSING THE MOLE 

HEAD OF NAPLES, COMING TO 

ANCHOR, 13 SEPT., iSoQ. 

MARINE ROOM, PEABODY MUSEUM, 

SALEM. 




SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 289 

the best work of the sort ever published." This 
book, in reahty a revision of a popular handbook 
of navigation, by John Hamilton Moore, corrected 
many thousand errors in tables and calculations 
in current use, besides adding new methods of 
Bowditch's own. So great was his service to mari- 
ners that, upon his death, American ships, and 
English and Russian vessels in foreign ports hung 
their colours at half-mast, while the cadets of the 
United States Naval School wore the official badge 
of mourning. 

A rather delicious Salem memory serves to link 
this Osgood house and the handsome new Athe- 
n«um, across the way. The nucleus of the col- 
lections of the Atheuceum consists of a nimiber of 
ancient volumes from the private library of Dr. 
Richard Kirwan, of Dublin, a distinguished scien- 
tist. This library was seized as a prize of war, dur- 
ing the Revolution, by a Beverly privateer. The 
story goes that the private armed ship. Pilgrim, be- 
longing to John and Andrew Cabot, while cruising 
off the English coast captured the British ship, 
Mars, after a desperate sea fight, in which the cap- 
tain of the Mars and five men were killed. The 
prize reached Beverly February 9, 1781, and with 
her cargo was sold at auction. Amongst the cargo 
was Dr. Kirwan's library ; it was secured by several 



200 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

gentlemen of Salem, who contributed the amount 
necessary for its purchase, and with it founded the 
Philosophical Library Company, now included in 
the Salem Athena?um. The name " R. Kirwan,"* in 
faded ink. may be deciphered on the flyleaves of 
several of the volimies exhibited in the Trustees' 
Room, and one still bears Dr. Kirwan's bookplate. 

LTpon this rare troiaaillc Nathaniel Bowditch 
feasted his vouno- mind durino- the time that he was 
apprenticed to a ship chandler in Salem, and it gave 
the impetus to his extraordinary mathematical abil- 
ity. The Athencemii was founded in 1810, and in 
recognition of his genius, the boy enjoyed special 
privileges, especially with Dr. Kirwan's library 
which he studied exhaustively. He describes the 
Athenjtum in his day as richer in scientific and 
philosophical works than coukl be found nearer 
than Philadelphia. At his death he left the insti- 
tution a legacy in grateful acknowledgement of its 
service to himself. 

Of the Athenieum also Nathaniel Hawthorne was 
a proprietor. Its first president was Edward 
Augustus Holyoke, of whom a very handsome por- 
trait, by Frothingham, hangs in the portrait gallery 
of the Essex Institute. 

If Bowditch was an intellectual prodigy he was 
also himself a '* practical navigator." He followed 



SA:MrEL McIXTIRE'S SALEM 291 

the sea for nine years, shipping first under Captain 
Prince, in 179.), as captain's clerk in the Ilcnrii of 
Salem. With this same captain he sailed, as super- 
cargo, in Elias Hasket Derhy's ship the Astrca, on 
the first voyage made hy an American ship to 
^Manila. It fell to Bowditch to keep the journal of 
this voyage and his precise hand-written log is one 
of the treasures of Essex Institute. 

During the voyage, so goes the ancient anecdote, 
the supercargo entertained himself hy teaching 
navigation to the sailors, to such good piu'pose that 
the whole crew of twelve ahoard the Astrca later he- 
came captains and mates. Xot to waste his time 
during the tedium of his five recorded sea voyages 
he studied French, Italian, Portuguese, and Span- 
ish, hesides making his observations and putting 
his theories of practical navigation to the test. A 
shipmate pictin-es him as often upon the deck, 
"walking rapidly and apparently in deep thought, 
A\hen it was well understood by all on board that he 
was not to be disturbed, as we supposed that he was 
solving some difficult problem. And when," con- 
tinues the narrator, " he darted below, the conclu- 
sion was that he had got the idea. If he w'as in the 
fore part of the ship when the idea came to him, he 
would actually run to the cabin, and his countenance 
would give the expression that he had found a prize." 



29-2 A LOITKKKK I\ XF.W KXCtTAXD 

He wears indeed a delicious expiessioo of win- 
seme intelligenee in the thoiougfalT charactertstic 
portrait, by Charles Osgood, a noted Saltan artist, 
that hangs anicngst the '* captains '' in the Marine 
Room of the Peabody Museum, for he was, of 
course, of the body of illustrious founders of the 
East India Marine Society. The portrait diows 
such a proper old gentleman, with a remarkable 
frontal develojHaient, upon which the painter has 
concentrated the light so that tiie ]llimiinati<Ni is 
almost equal to that which shines upon tiie dome of 
the State House cm Beacon Hill. The painting of 
this head is quite a performance and shows ^an ap- 
preciation of the intellectuality of tiie sitter that 
reflects most creditably upon the m^itality of a 
painter not too well known outside his locality. The 
skiiU is tiiere imder its thin fleshy «ivelope, 
stretched as it were to its capacity by the prodigious 
brain within. Nathaniel Bowditch is frankly pcxsed. 
one feels the concession in tiie hand which holds 
doAvn the place, in the book before him on the table, 
at which he was interrupted, as well as the spectacles 
held provisionally in the left hand ready to sKp 
back before the ke^a old eyes the moment he is re- 
leased f rwn his obligation to the painter. He is all 
in black, out of respect to the dead lang\iages, as 
one might fancy, and his satin waistcoat and white 



SAAIIEL MclXTlKK S SAl KM ^98 

stock have caught the indirect light as it descends 
from the shining head. Behind him books, books, 
boi>ks, and an op«i \vindi>w with a bit of land- 
scape and a curtain pidled ti> one side and against 
which rests in shadow the bust of the great FreiKh 
astrcmomer. Laplace, whotse work, Jiltcarnqtit 
Ctitstt^ Bowditch translated and enriched by ex- 
haustive notes. 

The Essex Institute, which will be fomid a very 
treasun? house of historic matter, preserves and ef- 
fectively displays the medallicoi portrait of Wash- 
ington, made frcai the sb?tch done on the spot frcwn 
life, bv Samuel Mclntire fer the western «ate of 
the Salem Ciuumcm. and j^erehed wi the top of the 
Citv HaU. in Washington Street, will be foimd the 
carved and gilded eagle made by the same artist, 
which stood over the centre of the arch. Felts Ah- 
iia/ji shows a woodctit of the imposing effect of 
these improvements made to the Common about the 
beginning of the last century and relates how Elias 
Hasket Derby. Jr.. who was " then a colonel in the 
miUtia.** raised a fimd for grading, planting titees, 
and kindred improvemeats. and how. in 1803. fur- 
ther contributions enabled the town to enclose its 
green within a woode« fence with four ornamental 
gateways. The woodcut is made frcwi the western 
end. the most elaborate, with the eagle over the top 



294 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

of the arch and the profile medalhon in tlie centre 
underneath. 

Most of the fine houses surrounding the common 
were built in 1818, which seems to have been the 
year when this neighbourhood was taken up as a 
fashionable quarter, and so they represent the last 
flower of the " period." Nothing of note in this 
period was added to the architecture of Salem after 
the death of Mclntire's son, who died in 1819 — 
perhaps it would be more exact to say after the 
death of Daniel Bancroft, which occurred in June 
1818. It will be remembered that Daniel Ban- 
croft was associated with Mclntire in the build- 
ing of the Court House, or rather that Bancroft 
built it from Mclntire's designs. It is probable 
that, in our eagerness to do belated justice to 
Mclntire, Bancroft's abilities may be overlooked. 
The Reverend William Bentley, who was some- 
thing of a connoisseur, records in his Diary, under 
the date June 5, 1818: "This week we buried 
Daniel Bancroft age 72. He was the most able 
architect we had. We gave more to the genius of 
Macintire as a carver, but as a practical man in 
every part of carpentry, in house building, I have 
never known Mr. Bancroft's superior." 

The character of the houses on Washino-ton 
Square, while a little cold compared with those of 




MANTEL IX THE PARLOUR OF THE KIMBALL RESIDENCE, SALEM. 
CARVED LY SAMUEL m'iNTIRE. 




KIMBALL HOUSE DOORWAY, I4 PICKMAN ST. SPIRAL STAIRWAY, KIMBALL HOUSE. 




PORCH AND DOORWAY OF THE PEABODY-SILSBEE HOUSE. 
SAMUEL m'iNTIRE, ARCHITECT, 1797- 



SAMUEL McIXTIRE'S SxVLEM 295 

earlier date, is undeniably good and shows the 
JNlcIntire influence and tradition, a tradition car- 
ried on as it would appear by the capable builder 
perhaps directed by the son of so brilliant a father, 
only to perish w^ith the last of the family. In this 
connection it is interesting to note that the year of 
his death (1811) finds Bulfinch the designer of the 
Essex Bank, and, in 1816, of the Almshouse, that 
rather cold, prison-like structure across Collin's 
Cove, upon Salem Neck. 

The year 1800 seems to have been an auspicious 
one for Samuel JNIcIntire; no doubt his great 
achievement, the Derby mansion, had put him in a 
frame of mind to do his best work. Certainly every- 
thing which bears that date is of the best — the 
Ezekiel Hersey Derby house in Essex Street, the 
Adam drawing-room of Jeratlmieel Peirce's house, 
the doorway and porch of the Tucker house, pre- 
served in the Essex Institute, the incomparable 
beauty of the details of " Oak Hill," at Peabody, all 
stand prominently out amongst his bravest efforts. 
To this catalogue must be added the features of a 
charmingly modest brick dwelling in Pickman 
Street,^ known as the Kimball house, and still for- 
tunately resided in by the family. This most sug- 
gestive street in Salem leads, under spreading elms, 

» No. 14. 



290 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

straight out upon Collin's Cove, terminating in the 
most charming of vistas, even now when seldom a 
craft is caught within the feathery frame of foliage, 
but how much more so " then," when a full-rigged 
ship might at any time be making its way across the 
oj^en, inward or outward bound. The Kimball 
house, amongst modest neighbours, gives itself no 
airs, beyond exhaling its intrinsic, native charm, its 
perfect expression of one to the manner born. It 
belongs to the street and to the vista, it dates back 
with the arching elms to the era of the full-rigged 
ship. That there is "something about it " one senses 
as soon as one turns into this quiet street, from the 
vicinity of the Common, and the conviction grows 
as one penetrates the aura of its cool compactness. 

What a delight then to learn that the Kimball 
house contains " features " unique in Salem. It 
stands closer than many to the transition period 
between the ship carpentry at its height, with its 
elaborate wood carving done for the pure joy of the 
handicraft, and its transference to the uses of the 
housewright. The rope moulding throughout the 
Kimball house, hand carved with utmost nicety, 
holds the essential nautical flavoin*. A line of it fol- 
lows the slender wind of the perfect stairway which 
like a pulled-out shaving is stretched through the 
centre of this shallow house with clever economy of 



SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 297 

space, and at the first landing shows no break in the 
flowing line of the balustrade. 

There are several contestants for the honour of 
the best INIcIntire mantel, but there are none which 
show the fulness of his powers, the exuberance of 
his fancy as does this one. It is of the same family 
as those in the Crowninshield house in Derby Street, 
but even more intricate and elaborate. The shelf is 
carried aroimd the angle of the chimney place to 
provide space for the two columns which flank the 
opening in addition to the fluted pilasters repeated 
on the sides. In many of INIcIntire's more graceful 
and delicate mantels, such as those in the Derby 
house on Essex Street (202l/o) and Jerathmeel's 
Adam drawing-room, the ornaments are modelled 
in French paste and ajiplied and painted, whereas 
the Kimball mantel is all carved out of wood and 
represents the most virile and splendid type. This 
quality of hand carving is carried throughout the 
room. A special feature of the fireplace is the 
quaint fireback, made in the reign of William and 
IMary, and brought over from England to Ipswich 
and installed there in the house of the present 
owner's grandfather, whence it came to Salem. It 
bears the date 1698 and the letters W R for Wil- 
liam Rex, very distinctly, as well as an effigy of that 
king, wearing his crown and holding his sceptre. 



298 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

The whole greatly resembles the slate tombstones 
of the period. 

If one should ask for the Grosvenor Square of 
Salem I should say that elm-shaded Chestnut 
Street, in its almost intact state of pristine charm 
would best correspond to London's high water 
mark. Most of the houses are of the period im- 
mediately succeeding INIcIntire's death, and the 
architect, had he lived, would doubtless have built 
the whole street. He made the Old South Church 
in 1804; its beauty of proportion was the admira- 
tion of the country and its spire put the accent of 
distinction upon this neighbourhood. It stood 
ninety-nine years, the type of such spires in New 
England, but was most unhappily destroyed by 
fire, in 1903. He built Hamilton Hall, for the 
Federalists, in 1805, named in honour of Alexander 
Hamilton, the fine old structure still standing, at 
the corner of Cambridge Street. Lafayette dined 
here in 1824. 

The Pingree house, 128 Essex Street, was 
Mclntire's last, built in 1810. A glance at it will 
show how closely it relates to the row of period 
houses, in Chestnut Street, built immediately after 
the architect's death. The Bolles doorway. No. 8, 
is one of the most delightful in all Salem — it dates 
from 1810. The house built for Dudley L. Pick- 



SAMUEL McINTIRE'S SALEM 299 

man, ~No. 27, in 181(), has a famous Corinthian 
porch while the harmony of the whole facade has 
made this house a type, its simplicity, on the whole, 
more satisfying than its elahorated neighhour. 

While more charming individual houses than 
these in Chestnut Street abound in Salem, the 
street is unique because of the handsome double row 
of fine designs all of the one epoch — the epoch 
which marks the close of the great American period. 
The street is in its way as perfect as the gallery of 
Gilbert Stuarts, in The Pennsylvania Academy of 
the Fine Arts. As the rich old portraits of ances- 
tral Philadelphians, done by a great resident painter 
in his prime, bespeak the character of the painter no 
less than the character of his sitters, so this double 
file of clean-cut, typical houses, standing in a quiet 
by-way of an ancient town, expresses the ideals of 
both designer and owner, which must have been 
singularly in accord to produce such harmony of 
result. Beneath its canopy of elms Chestnut 
Street, as one might say, is admirably " hung " with 
masterpieces of a significant age. 

There is a barn in Summer Street (No. 18) be- 
longing to one of the Chestnut Street houses, 
which conserves a few relics of Mclntire's carving, 
saved by an enthusiastic antiquarian of Salem. 
Upon this barn may be seen the ornaments from 



300 A LOriKUEK TX NEW ENGLAND 

the old Derby eoaeh house purchased from tlie 
owner after it had been removed to Lynde Street 
to make way for the shops that were built in the 
yard of the mansion. The urns at each end of the 
barn roof came from the old spire of the South 
Church, later burned. 

No doubt the time will come when Samuel ]McIn- 
tire, sculptor, will be rescued from oblivion and 
made known to the world, as his skill as architect 
is now recognized, at least amongst the professicni. 
We now place oNIcIntire in the field of architecture 
quite on a par with Bultinch, if not rather above that 
better known architect: but though during his life 
JNIcIntire enjoyed some little local fame as sculp- 
tor, cliiefiy through the appreciation of his friend 
William Bentley, his name in this connection, it 
would seem never travelled beyond the limits of his 
native town. 

There is deposited in the American Antiquarian 
Society, at Worcester, a bust of Governor AVin- 
throp, carved from wood by Samuel INIcIntire for 
]Mr. Bentley, in 1708. It owes its distinguished lo- 
cation to the importance of the subject rather than 
to a recognition of its merits as a work of art or 
even to its historic importance as the work of one 
of the two earliest native-born American sculptors. 
The history of the bust may be gleaned from the 




FRONT HALL AND STAIRWAY OF DAVIH P. WATERS HOUSE. IT IS ALMOST THE 
COUNTERPART OF THE STAIRWAY OF THE KIMIiALL HOUSE. "WHICH LIKE A 
PULLED-OUT SHAVING IS STRETCHED THROUGH THE CENTRE OF THIS 
SHALLOW HOUSE WITH CLEVER ECONOMY OF SPACE." 
SAMUEL m'iNTIRE, ARCHITECT, 1805. 




DUDLEY L. PICKMAN HOUSE, NO. 2/ CHESTNUT STREET. 
"one of THE MOST DELIGHTFUL IN ALL SALEM." 181O. 




THE BOLLES DOORWAY, NO. 8 CHESTNUT STREET. 

"one of the MOST DELIGHTFUL IN ALL SALEM." 181O. 




AMUEL m'iNTIRE's cJlcf d'a^UVVC. THE TEA HOUSE 
ROM THE HERSEY DERBY KARM, PEABODY. IJQQ. 



EAGLE CARVED BY SAMUEL M INTIRE 
IN 1802. FROM THE WEST GATE OF 
THE COMMON, AND NOW ON TOP OF 
THE CITY HALL. 




SAMUEL McIXTIRE'S SALEM 301 

pages of ]Mr. Bentley's Diary in which are constant 
references to the old portraits to he found in Salem. 
There is one entry in which the good man speaks of 
his wish to preserve the heads of the first settlers, 
followed by a memorandum of the location of such 
data as exists. He, himself, possessed a miniature 
of Governor Winthrop " from the original," — that 
is, I take it, made from life. This served as the 
basis for Mclntire's bust, with which, however, 
Bentley seems to have been dissatisfied, for under 
May 21, 1798, he records: "Mr. IMacIntire re- 
turned to me my Winthrop. I cannot say that he 
has expressed in the bust anything which agrees 
with the Governour." 

Bentley with all his qualities seems to have had 
the temperamental faidts of the art patron. But 
in his note upon Mclntire's death he comes out 
handsomely with the statement that the sculptor 
had no rival in New England and boasts that the 
specimens in his possession would bear comparison 
with any he had ever seen. "To the best of my 
abilities," says Bentley, " I encouraged him in this 
branch." 

ISIcIntire's dates come within those of the other 
early American sculptor and wood carver, William 
Rush, of Philadelphia, than whom he was in fact 
but a few months younger. Rush, however, rounded 



302 A LOITEREK TX XEW EXGEAXD 

out more than the full measure of his three score 
years and ten while ^Iclntire was cut off at but a 
few years past the half century. Kush worked in 
a metropolis at its most brilliant period: he was of 
a distinguished family, had advantages and asso- 
ciations of which ^Nlclntire never dreamed, while 
his full-length statue of Washington, carved from 
"recollection" aided by Houdon's bust, secured to 
his memory a measure of immortality. 

^Iclntire was descended from a poor family of 
carpenters " who had no claims on public favour." 
While Rush had the inspiration of Houdon's work 
before him, it is probable that ^Iclntire, beyond 
the figureheads of ships, had seen no sculpture. 

If we could place side by side Rush's statue of 
Washington and ^Iclntire's life-size tigure of the 
'* Reaper "' from the roof of the summer-house made 
for the Hersey Derby farm, in Peabody. 1 feel quite 
certain that the latter neglected figure would be 
found to measure quite up to. and perhaps beyond 
the historic relic in Independence Hall. The 
"Reaper" was made fifteen years earlier than 
Rush's /()///• (/(' force and, together with the figure 
of the " ]Milkmaid," which it balanced on the roof of 
the summer-house, and the " Pomona." which used 
to stand before the pavilion, was considered ^Ic- 
Intire's most ambitious success in sculpture. 



SAMUEL ]McIXTIRE'S SALEM 303 

The tea-house itself, quite aside from its sculp- 
tural features, is a fine little bit of Colonial archi- 
tecture. Its proportions constitute its chief delight. 
The floor plan is about 18'x2(>', while the elevation 
is two stories, the elegance of the perpendicular 
heightened by the tall figure surmounting the ])edi- 
ment and supported at the two ends by ornamental 
urns. A wide passage, now paved with marble 
tiles, runs through the centre of the house, the arch- 
way enclosed by lattice work, painted green, and 
this passage is enclosed on both sides by panelling, 
behind which are the small rooms used for keeping 
fruits. A narrow stairway leading to the room 
above discloses a wainscoted and panelled chamber 
with a coved ceiling, very charming to the eye. 

The tea-house has been removed bodily to the 
grounds of a farm, in Danvers, and, in its new en- 
vironment, has been appropriately set before an 
enclosed rose garden, shaded by luxuriant trees. 
This estate, which once belonged to Joseph Pea- 
body, and is now possessed by his granddaughter, 
is in perfect harmony with the little bijou of archi- 
tecture, and the summer-house lias been treated 
with utmost reverence. Its furnishings are in keep- 
ing with the traditions that have been preserved in 
the family. 

The " ^lilkmaid." after serving for a time as tlie 



304 A LC^ITERER IX XEW KXGLAND 

ornament to an old mill, or whatever, near its origi- 
nal location, was all but destroyed by tire, and the 
" Pomona " was taken to ^lilton. but the *' Reaper " 
is still handsomely in place over the pedinient of the 
little building. He is dressed delightfully in the 
small-clothes of the perioil and wears a silk hat: he 
appears standing daintily, like a fantastic gentle- 
man farmer, whetting his scythe, carved also in 
wood. 

Xo visitor to Salem may claim to have truly 
revelled in its charm or realized its influence who 
has failed to see the three objectives scattered 
thrcnigh Peabody and Danvers and of which the 
Derby tea-house is the chef d'wuvrc. " The Lin- 
dens '' is the earliest, erected in 1745 as the country 
home of Robert Hooper, called "King Hooper" 
because he was a Tory. The house stands in ad- 
mirable preservation at a beml o{ the road between 
Peabody and Danvers. It was occupied by General 
Gage, in 1774, as a summer residence when he was 
governor of Massachusetts. 

" Oak Hill." a large estate nearer to the town of 
Peabody. was built by Samuel Mclntire for 
X^athaniel \Vest. who married Elizabeth Derby. 
Elias Ilasket's daughter. It was i^l' tlie same vin- 
tage as the ]nirtially dismantled home of ^Irs. 
West's brother, Ezekicl. on Essex Street, so fre- 



SAML J:L iMclXTlUKS SALKINL 'Mh'y 

(lucntly referred to and with which it had niiich in 
conmion. Having always been cared for it pre- 
serves some of our wood carver's most charming 
work both outside and in. The doorways compare 
witli those of Jerathmeel Peirce's house, and the de- 
tails throughout show the most loving care. 

The house was built in 1800, the year after Elias 
Hasket's death, and the owner was one of three 
seafaring brothers trained in the Derby ships. 
Nathaniel West was born and died in Salem, his 
life having spanned all but a century. He was a 
])ioneer in many branches of the trade with China 
and other Oriental countries and having served in 
his youth upon the sea, embarked in commerce in 
middle life, amassing a large fortune. 

Charles Robert Leslie's portrait of Captain 
West, in the Marine Koom of the Peabody ]Mu- 
seum, gives a gentler account of his personality than 
the local historians, who have described him as of 
tine figure and majestic mien and gait. A spirited 
water colour of his ship, the Ilcrculrs, commanded 
by the owner's brother. Captain Kdward AVest, at 
the time that she was seized in Naples, in 1809, 
hangs upon the opposite wall of this room. The 
ship was released in order that she might transport 
I^ucien Bonaparte and his family to INIalta. At the 
conclusion of the war with England, \u 181.), the 



30(3 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Hercules was the tirst vessel to sail from the 
United States for the East under the terms of the 
treaty, and when last heard of was still doing serv- 
ice as a New Bedford whaler. 

A turn through the old Charter Street Cemetery 
and our duty towards Salem is done. It cherishes 
many old Salem munes on the modest slates with 
their naif carvings and quaint epitaphs. Here rests 
Habakuk Bowditch. the father of the intellectual 
prodigy. Here rests Mr. Xathanael Mather, a 
brother of the Rev. Cotton, who -DEC' Octol>er Y^ 
17 1688. An aged perfon that had feen but nineteen 
Wniters in the World." Here " lyetli '" buried also 
the body oi Captain Richard More, a Mai/ Flotccr 
pilgrim, who died in U>0*J. Back of the cemetery 
lie the waste lands swept by the great tire of 1914, 
for tliis old graveyard cliecked the flames as they 
leaped towards historic Salem. 



CIIAPTF.rx XIIT 

BOSTON: THE rEAR-SIIArED 

PEN INSULA 

The quintessence of Boston lies within the origi- 
nal pear-shaped peninsula as it exist eti before the 
extensive tilling in of the coves and creeks which 
indented its shores. Though possibly no city has 
altered more its physical conformation, no city has 
lost less its native, inalienable personality, the whole 
of which lies reserved \\ithin the original pear- 
sliaped peninsula, compact and rich like the kernel 
of a nut. 

The loiterer with a sense of cities ^vill, as he learns 
Boston, find little dithculty in distinguishing the 
kernel from the shell. He Avill be able to feel 
through the soles of his boots the inevitable char- 
acter of the old meandering cow patlis in their 
inmiense difference from the straight and vride 
thoroughfares laid out by modern system over the 
*' made ground." He will recognize the streets that 
pave the original lanes which rounded the bases of 
the several hills that ran up from the harlxmr or 
crossed their slopes at the easiest angles: the trail 

307 



308 A LOITERER IX XEW ENGLAND 

made by the Indians between their huts on the 
Shaiv?7iut Hills and their fisheries in the bay. He 
will instinctively feel where the old involved shore 
line of Shaw7nut breaks away from the vidgar out- 
reaching of the new land of Boston, encroaching 
upon the surrounding waters, as instinctively and 
as surely as the sculptor feels when his tool breaks 
cleanly off the green plaster of the matrix which 
encloses the perfect object of his art within. 

If he be a proper loiterer at all he will under- 
stand at once why the Bostonian. more than any 
other sort of American, loves to be asked the way, 
loves to show the short cuts which the tangle of his 
streets makes so agreeably possible, loves to walk 
himself through the rare back alleys of the business 
section, takes pride in directing strange footsteps 
over the paths of the Common, showing artfully 
how a hill may be avoided or a foot or two saved, 
revels, in fine, in the whole amusing maze, so simple 
to him and so bewildering to the uninitiated. That 
it is — so far as the pear-shaped peninsula is con- 
cerned — a city that takes learning, in order to be 
able to navigate, is in the eyes of the native the 
more creditable to itself as showing a superior de- 
gree of character and individuality, and the more 
creditable to him who can walk so fleetly and care- 
lessly, so precisely where he wants to go, or who can 



THE PEAR-SHAPED PEXIXSULA 309 

at the drop of the hat with a kindly word or a com- 
petent gesture restore confidence to the erring and 
straying footsteps of an embroiled stranger in such 
a district as. let us say, Dock Square. It makes 
one feel so clever and so pleasant. 

I shall never forget an old, old woman of whom 
a genial Danish friend and I once asked the way in 
Paris to the rue Jacob, having somehow lost our 
bearings in the heart of the old quarter about the 
Odcon. She beamed upon us thrilled by the oppor- 
tunit}' to help us and deposited her basket or what- 
ever upon the sidewalk in order to be wholly ours. 
" Vous n'avez," she began shrilly and explicitly and 
with much pantomime, " vous u'avez que sun re 
cette rue la, prendre la premiere a gauche, puis, 
descendre jusquau bout — et,'' with an eloquent 
gesture spreading it before us hke a carpet, "" loild 
la rue Jacob.' " She was so munificent in her direc- 
tions that she seemed to make us a present of the 
rue Jacob. 

I remember an hotel porter on Boylston Street 
one simimer evenino^ sho^ving me elaboratelv how 
to cut off to Pro^-ince Street by taking the path he 
indicated over the Common and, "keeping the biu-y- 
ing ground on my right," bear away towards the 
desired section. The burtTiig ground, consisting 
of a handful of historic stones railed off, was per- 



310 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

siiaded to remain quietly on my right and the path 
led surely enough to the exact spot foretold, but 
what diverted me was the man's careful mention of 
landmarks by which I should be sure of myself as 
I went along — it was all as meticulously enumer- 
ated as the rocks and channels of a mariner's chart. 

Sometimes a street cleaner accosted in Washing- 
ton Street where a tangle presented would, like my 
old Frenchwoman, drop his handbarrow to be free 
for pointing and smiling kindly at my " Would you 
tell me — ? " preface his remarks by a hearty Irish: 
" \Vhy shure," and then give it to me in the plainest, 
fullest manner. 

Whatever their faults may be they have at least 
this one grand virtue, the desire to make their city 
accessible to strangers and, like the Cape Cod folks, 
of whom Thoreau speaks, they meet one another to 
advantage, as men who have at length learned how 
to live. And if they glory a little in the original de- 
fects of their city plan, they, on the other hand, do 
their utmost to mitigate its disadvantages and to 
win the visitor to an appreciation of its undeniable 
charm. 

A modern map of a great city is scarcely a beau- 
tiful thing. The early maps and charts, on the 
contrary, were made with real feeling by the first 
engravers.- Burgiss' map of Boston, engraved in 



THE PEAR-SHAPED PEXIXSULA 3U 

1728, is a work of art, and I can imagine no more 
amusing pastime for an idle hour than to try to 
fit this charming souvenir of the past into the large 
chart now necessary to accommodate Boston and its 
environs, and to recognize in that little knobbly 
heart of the great page, all black and complicated 
with the crisscrossings of the ancient streets and 
alleys, the old promontory of Blaxton's day, the 
thriving town of the Revolutionary epoch. 

Burgiss' map shows clearly how the warty old 
pear, of the famihar figure, hung from the main- 
land of Roxbiiry by a slender stem, or neck, a mile 
in length and so low and nairbw between its tide 
washed flats that it was often submerged. Nor 
were its most radical changes so remote but that 
Thomas Wentworth Hiorarinson could remember 
Boston in his college days as not particularly differ- 
ing from the Biu-giss map. as still a peninsula two 
miles by one at its widest part and writes that the 
water ''almost touched Charles Street where the 
Pubhc Garden now is and rolled over the flats and 
inlets called the Back Bay. where the costliest 
houses of the city now stand." 

At the time of its earliest settlement this terri- 
toiy was one of many similar peninsulas jutting 
into the Massachusetts Bay and connected with the 
mainland bv narrow marshv necks doubtless thrown 



312 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

up by the continuous action of the tides and the 
rivers wliich flow into the ocean at this point. 
When Governor Jolui Wintlirop and his company 
came out from England to estabhsh the ^Nlassa- 
chusetts Bay Colony in New England, a few iso- 
lated settlers were already hving on the promon- 
tories and islands of the harbour. We are not to 
forget that Robert Gorges, a son of Sir Ferdi- 
nando, had, in 1623, obtained a grant of some three 
hundred square miles in ^lassachusetts, which in- 
cluded the Boston peninsula, wliich claim through 
his death had devolved upon his surviving brother, 
John Gorges, and that while consenting to the grant 
made to Endecott and his jDarty Sir Ferdinando 
had expressly reserved the rights of his sons. 

The royal charter of the Massachusetts Bay Com- 
pany, granted to Jolm Winthrop as governor, 
blandly ignored these prior claims, and the rapid 
influx of colonists, as a result of the general Puritan 
exodus which followed the appointment of men of 
such prominence in England as Winthrop and his 
associate Thomas Dudley, threatened to sweep 
away Gorges' feeble hold upon the country. 

More than a year prior to Winthrop's departure 
John Gorges had sent a representative over to look 
after Iiis interests in Xew England and had at- 
tempted to assert the validity of his brother's claim 



THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 313 

by transferring parts of it; in addition to this he 
claimed the presence of liis brother's tenants — 
Blaxton, ^Maverick, Walford, and others, scattered 
thereabouts, as establishing liis legal possession. 
^Villiam Blaxton had built a house and planted a 
farm on the Shaicmut peninsula; Thomas Walford 
was at Mishaicum, now Charlesto^\Ti; Maverick 
at the mouth of the ^Mystic River, now Chelsea; 
Thomas Weston had attempted a holding at JVes- 
sagusset, now Weymouth; while ^Morton had 
liis reactionary settlement at ]Merr\Tiiount, near 
Quincy. 

Endecott, who was a man of drastic methods and 
the provisional governor of the colony, attempted 
to checkmate Gorges' move by sending out from 
the nest at Salem, in 1629, fifty settlers to occupy 
Mishazcufu on the ^lassachusetts Bay. The Mas- 
sachusetts Bay at this time was restricted in its in- 
terpretation to what is now the Boston Harbour. 

Winthrop and Dudley sailed in April, 1630, and 
within the year came seventeen ships bearing one 
thousand immigrants or more to New England 
through the port of Salem, a sufficient tide to over- 
flow the original settlement and to furnish the 
nucleus of several new towns, sweeping in fact over 
CharlestovvTi, Boston, Newtown, Roxbury, and 
Dorchester. 



314 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

John Winthrop was chosen governor of the Mas- 
sachusetts Bay Colony at the time when the charter 
and government were transferred to New England 
through the initiative of the most eminent members 
of the Puritan party in England, who meeting at 
Cambridge, on August 26, 1629, resolved to lead 
the pending wholesale migration. The time was 
critical, for the Protestants throughout Europe and 
the English Puritans looked upon hasty coloniza- 
tion as their only feasible means of escape from an 
intolerable condition of affairs at home. Winthrop 
had qualities which inspired confidence in his leader- 
ship. He is described as a man of great strength 
and beauty of character, scholarly, intelligent, and 
modest, religious without intolerance. The grand- 
son of a manufacturer and only son of a la^vyer, he 
was educated for the bar, practised law for some 
years and was active in the Puritan movement in 
his native locality. He was from Groton, in Suf- 
folk, and had been three times married when he 
came to this country, the first time when he was 
but seventeen years of age, and had many children 
and grandchildren. That his motives in accepting 
the governorship were mixed is argued from the 
fact that about one half of his moderate income as 
a country gentleman was derived from the estate 
of his first wife, to be his only during the minority 




GOVERNOR JOHN WINTHROP. 

FROM AN OLD PORTRAIT IN THE STATE HOUSE, ASCRIBED TO VAN DYCK. 



THE PEAR-SHAPED PEXIXSULA 315 

of her three sons, about this time terminated, so 
that the proposition to lead the colony in the new 
world came not only as an opportunity to enjoy a 
high position and exercise his executive talents but 
as a practical solution of his private affairs and 
freedom for his Puritan principles as well. 

The deputy-governor, Thomas Dudley, was the 
antithesis of his confrere. Of ancient Norman 
family, the younger branch conspicuous in Eliza- 
beth's reign, Dudley stands in the early days of 
Xew England history as the type of narrow- 
minded, grim Puritanism, the symbol of all that 
was imlovely in the bleak and stern character of 
the Calvinists. 

Armed with the new charter John Winthrop 
and his company set sail from Southampton, on 
March 29, 1630, in the Arhella, of three hundred 
and fifty tons' burden, vd\h fifty-two seamen and 
twenty-eight guns, commanded by Peter jNIilborne. 
Three other ships sailed with them: the Talbot, 
the Ambrose, and the Jewel, leaving the rest of the 
fleet — the Charles, the May Flower, the William 
and Francis, the Ho pen: ell, the Whale, the Success, 
and the Trial at Southampton, to follow later. The 
Arbella was made admiral of the fleet, the Ambrose 
vice-admiral, and the Talbot rear-admiral. 

With Winthrop and Dudley came Charles Fines, 



316 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

George Phillipps, Richard Saltonstall, Isaac John- 
son, and Wilham Coddington besides others who 
later became distinguished in the colony. Great 
merit was made of the case of the Lady Arabella 
Johnson, a daughter of the Earl of Lincoln, who 
forsook the comforts and luxuries of her father's 
household to accomjjany her husband, Isaac John- 
son, on this tedious voyage. They were over ten 
weeks en route making land on June 12. Endecott, 
the acting governor, went out from Salem to greet 
them in the harbour and the new governor and his 
suite came ashore and feasted upon venison with 
the dignitaries of the town, while others of the com- 
pany gathered wild strawberries on Cape Ann. 

Some of the ladies of the party were made com- 
fortable for the night ashore, but the men returned 
to the Arhella and slept aboard. Two days later 
most of the emigrants left the ship under a part- 
ing salute of five cannons and the Arhella was 
"warped " into the harbour. 

With the coming of Winthrop, Salem ceased to 
be the capital town of the Massachusetts Bay Col- 
ony and Endecott relinquished the reins of govern- 
ment. The new arrivals found desperate conditions 
at Salem and little to encourage remaining there. 
Not only was Salem already planted and supplied 
with as many inhabitants as she was well able to 



THE PEAR-SHAPED PEXIXSULA 317 

receive, but food was exceedingly scarce and the 
population much wasted by sickness. ]More than one 
fourth of their predecessors had died during the 
previous winter. The faithful pastor, Higginson, 
was declining and indeed died in the month of 
August following. Xor were the -passengers of the 
Arhella and her sister ships immune from the gen- 
eral contamination of the place and amongst the 
first to succumb to the disease, which before au- 
tumn had destroyed two hundred of the year's 
total immigration, was the gentle Lady Arabella 
who had had so little experience of hardships. She 
died and was buried in the earliest burial place in 
Salem. 

With conditions such as these and the remainder 
of the laden fleet from Southampton due to arrive 
on any day. Governor Winthrop lost no time in 
casting about for a suitable place for his " sitting 
down." Within five days of his landing he had 
explored the jMystic River to its source without 
success and looked over the resources of the country 
about the River Charles finally selecting the north 
bank, known to the Indians as Mishaicum, as a 
favourable location for the capital of JMassachu- 
setts. 

We are to be constantly reminded of the ex- 
tremely limited idea which the settlers grasj^ed of 



318 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

the breadth of the vast continent to wliich they 
claimed possession. If Massachusetts Bay meant 
to them merely Boston Harbour, the territory to 
which they gave the old Indian name they under- 
stood to be only a fringe of land along the coast 
enclosing the harbour, from about Cohasset on the 
south but extending above Cape Ann to about the 
present border of New Hampshire. The same 
plague which had cleared the way for the Pilgrim 
forefathers had devastated the country now looked 
upon by Winthrop and his following and they 
found no Indians inhabiting the peninsulas either 
of Shawmut or Mattapan and only a few at Mish- 
atoum. 

The settlement hastily decided upon at Misha- 
tjcujii was none too quickly established to relieve 
Salem in her stricken state of the onus of looking 
after the immigrants which to the tune of about 
seven or eight hundred came flocking into port on 
the ten vessels which immediately followed the arri- 
val of the ArheJla. By July 8, all the ships of the 
fleet had arrived and on August 20 came in addi- 
tion the Gift to Charlestown Harbour making 
eleven ships in all. Of these colonists some came 
from the west of England but the greatest number 
were from the neighbourhood of London. 

Looking across the River Charles from their 



THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 319 

temjDorary habitation, the conspicuous feature of 
the adjoining peninsula was the three-peaked sum- 
mit of the highest of three hills which characterized 
the landscape. From this peculiar topographical 
feature the English settlers gave to Shawmut the 
name Trimountaine or Treamont, of which the 
street along the east side of the Common is a 
j^leasant souvenir. 

At this time William Blaxton, a young English 
clergyman supposed to have come to America with 
Robert Gorges, who in 1623 had attempted a 
settlement at Weymouth, was the sole inhabitant 
of this Trimoimtaine towards which the colony 
at Charlestown soon began to cast longing eyes. 
The Charlestown peninsula lacked what was Shaw- 
mut's principal advantage, the abundant springs 
of clear, fresh water, the " living fountains," as the 
Indians expressed it in their native title. 

Due to lack of water, as some said, Winthrop's 
colony at Charlestown suffered exceedingly during 
the summer of their arrival, and moved to com- 
passion by the great mortality of tl\e colonists, 
William Blaxton, who in himself constituted the 
unique population of Sliatvmut, invited them over 
to share his preferred solitude. 

The first settler of Boston, William Blaxton, is 
described as a man of much cidture and many 



:V20 A I.OITKRKK IX NEW ENGLAND 

eccentricities, as " a solitary, bookish recluse, about 
thirty-live years of age, somewhat above middle 
height, slender in form,, with a pale, thoughtful 
face, Avearino' a confused, dark coloured, ' canonical 
coate,' with a broad rinmied hat strung with shells 
like an ancient palmer, antl slouched back from his 
pensive brow, around which his prematurely gray 
hair fell in heavy curls far down his neck. He had 
a Avallet at his side, a hammer in his girdle, a long 
statf in his hand." 

The Hermit of Sha^^^nut stands out as a solitary 
tigure in those days of religious fanaticism. He 
appears to have come to New England strictly in 
quest of peace and quiet, and to have eliminated 
himself from the controversies and embroilments 
o^ this hectic time, selecting this uninhabited pen- 
insida for his estate and occupying himself with his 
books, his roses, and his orchards, in peaceful pos- 
session of his hut. near an excellent spring on the 
sunny slope of Beacon Hill, near the back basin of 
the Charles, wliile his orchards covered what is now 
Louisburg Square. 

]Mr. Blaxton is counted a divine, and Cotton 
blather reckons him as amongst '* some gxxlly Epis- 
co[)alians " worthy o\' brief mention in his Magnalia, 
and relates that " happening to sleep first in an 
hovel upon a point o( land there [he) laid claim 



TIIK TKAH SHAPKl) PENINSULA 321 

to all the L>roiin(l wlicrciiixm there iu)\v stands tlie 
metropolis of the whole English Anieriea, nntil the 
inhahitants gave him satisfaction. This man," eon- 
timies ^Mather, *" was indeed, of a particular humour 
and he would never join himself to any of our 
churches, giving this reason for it : ' 1 came from 
England because I did not like the lord-hishops; 
but I can't join with you because I would not be 
under the lord-brethren/" This mot of Blaxton's 
sticks as fast to the eccentric parson as the legend 
of the " brindled bull," of Oliver Wendell Holmes' 
poem, and upon which he was supposed to ride 
madly for exercise. ]Motley amplified the legend 
into a picture of the hermit mounted upon a very 
handsome mouse-coloured bull, which he had 
brought with him from England, careering in a 
ra})id gallop along the sandy margin of the cove — 
the margin now covered by Charles Street. 

The bull trained to the saddle seems to have 
caught the picturesque fancy of historians since 
the days of Europa. The legend concerning the 
wedding journey of John Alden and Priscilla, pre- 
served in the annals of Cape Cod, runs that the 
bridegroom went from Plymouth to Barnstable 
riding on the back of a white bull, with a piece of 
handsome broadcloth for a saddle and on his re- 
turn led the bull carefullv bv a cord fastened to 



322 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

the nose ring while Priscilla rode resplendent upon 
the saddle. Horses were scarce in the early days 
of the colony and bulls and oxen were employed to 
do their work. AVe have record of cattle being sent 
out from England to Strawberry Bank, in Maine, 
to Cape Ann, and to Plymouth between 1620-1630. 

Blaxton's j^romontory which the Indians called 
Shatcjuut and the English at Charlestown knew as 
Trimountaine, resembled rather two islands than 
a jjeninsula. Anchored to the continent by a long 
thread of land, across which the spray dashed at 
high tide, it seemed in imminent danger of snapping 
its slender cable and floating out amongst the many 
other islands in the harbour. The whole peninsula 
is described as being made up of three hills and their 
intervening valleys. Beacon Hill, or Trimountaine, 
dominated the prospect rising in the form of a 
sugar l;)af one hundred and thirty-eight feet above 
the water line. From its top the view was exten- 
sive: to the north Copp's Hill presented its bold 
front to the ocean, while to the southeast the land 
rose again to the more roimded Fort Hill, anciently 
Corn Hill, once the site of an Indian fort. 

Within the deep curve of the coast the bay pre- 
sented a spectacle of great beauty, its broad surface 
dotted with an hundred verdant islands, its waters 
sheltered by the surrounding hills, wooded to the 



THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 323 

banks. Beyond the wider circle of the Boston basin 
the bold outlines of the Cheviot Hills, called by the 
natives the JNIassachusetts or JNIount Arrow Head, 
and the ridges of the Wellington Hills extended 
irregularly from Waltham towards Cape Ann, on 
the north. 

At the base of Beacon Hill the Quinohequin, the 
river already renamed for his princely patron by 
Captain John Smith, made the last deep curve of 
its tortuous course and joining briefly with the 
JNIystic, which embraced the upper side of Mish- 
awuvi, the two mingled their waters and flowed 
together to the sea. 

Blaxton's house, a picturesque cottage, set in a 
rose garden, stood at the base of the hill in a wide 
glade studded with great detached forest trees, a 
natural park of about fifty acres. Its exact loca- 
tion has been variously described, but identified 
with a fair amount of certainty as situated on 
the present Beacon Street, between Charles and 
Spruce streets, with the grounds set down in Bur- 
giss' map of 1728, as Banister's Gardens. The 
whole neck of land, containing over seven hundred 
acres and four miles in circuit, he considered liis 
own. 

When Governor Winthrop and his colonists ac- 
cepted Blaxton's invitation to move over to his 



324 A LOITEUKU IX NEW ENGLAND 

domain he was less disturbed since their first settle- 
ment was a few cabins on the eastern declivity at 
the foot of a hill which fronted towards the sea. 
This locality was j^ref erred because of its proximity 
to Charlestown and the dwellings of those settlers 
who had declined to cross the river. 

The hermit of Share ?nut drove no hard bargain 
with the colonists who were ultimately to oust him 
from his peaceful possessions. The peninsula ap- 
pealed to them as a place of settlement because of 
its advantageous situation for commerce and de- 
fence, despite the fact of its abrupt, irregular sur- 
face, its marshes, and uncompromising, sterile soil. 
On September 17, 1630, John Winthrop convened 
the "court of assistants" and it was decided that 
" Trimountaine shall be called Boston." The Lady 
Arabella and her husband Isaac Johnson were pre- 
sumably honoured in this name, borrowed from old 
Boston, in Lincolnshire, England, from which they 
came and in whose parish John Cotton was still 
preaching. The Lady Arabella was already dead 
in Salem, as we know, and her husband, of whom 
much had been hoped in the colony, lived but a few 
days to enjoy the compliment conferred upon him. 

Blaxton was admitted as a freeman to the colony 
in 1631. Two years later fifty acres near his house 
on the slope of the hill, were set apart for his use 



THE PEAR-SHAPED PENINSULA 32r> 

forever; but in another year's time he relinquished 
all but six acres of this property in a general re- 
lease of the whole j^eninsula. These forty-four 
acres he sold for .£30 to the community for a train- 
ing field which now comi)rises the Common. Tlie 
six acres of his immediate occupation formed later 
the estate of the painter, Co])ley, and are approxi- 
mately bounded by Beacon, Walnut, Pinckney, 
and Charles streets. 

His separate tastes did not long permit Blaxton 
to suffer the invasion of his solitude, and in the 
spring of 1G35, he abandoned his farm, his house, 
and his orchards, and, penetrating into the wilder- 
ness of Rhode Island, reestablished himself al)out 
six miles from Providence, on that part of the 
Pawtucket River which afterwards bore his name. 
That he profited somewhat by his sojourn amongst 
the Winthrop colonists is judged from the record 
of his marriage, in Boston, in 1635, to Mistress 
Sarah, widow of John Stevenson, Mr. Endecott 
officiating, and the rumour that they lived happily 
ever after. 

Blaxton lived to be eighty years old, and died 
in lf)7o, one month before the ()utl)reak of King 
Philip's War, in which his Rhode Island house was 
burned and his library of one hundred and sixty 
volumes and ten manuscripts destroyed. Roger 



:20 A LOITKKKK I\ NKW KXGT.AXD 

\Villi;uns. his neiiihlxnir. rejK>rteii his death to the 
Boston ci^lony. In the inventory of his estate the 
manuscripts were vahieil at sixpence each, or live 
shillings for the lot — priceless .Vinericana ct^ntain- 
ing. it has l>een ct.^njtvtiirt\i. the earliest written 
reot^>rds of Boston. 

William Blaxton was a singular and picturesque 
tigure of these early times, standing out in passive 
opjx>sition to the upheavals and violence of those 
-who foTXHxl asstxnation upon liim and retrt^ating 
always rather than take part in the stress of his 
day. To-day we should perhaps have calleil him 
a pacifist, but in no unkindly sense. The tigure of 
the bull persists and he is piotureii as riding this 
clumsy l>east in his new alxxie. cultivating a two 
himdreil acre estate, and preaching the gv^spel ix^- 
ca^ionally. Xo monument has lx?en reareii to his 
memory: but, Wsides the river, a valley, a town in 
^lassachusetts. and a street in old Bi>$ton are calleii 
for him and save his name from ci^mplete oblivion. 



CIIAPTKU XIV 
BEACON II ILL 

l^KACON Him,, the naiiio indeed justified by tlie 
physical fact of the existing-, tlu>iigh oreatly dimin- 
ished sugar loaf of the aneient descriptions, main- 
tains its identity, as a locality, as Lutlgate 1 1 ill. in 
London, is remembered by the name of the street 
which runs over its site. Guarding the Common, its 
})innacle culminating in the elfulgent dome of the 
classic State House — Bultinch's charming master- 
piece — it seems to mark, for all the westward 
sprawl oi' the growing younger city, the expansion 
o\' the metropolitan circuit, the very central point 
of interest for loiterers; while the mellow, glowing 
dome of the historic edifice so dominates a ]n-ospeet, 
from whose every j)oint it is radiantly visible, as 
almost to justify Holmes' cheerful boast that: 
"Boston State House is the hub of the Solar 
System." 

Yet " Boston," says a chiding phrase in a book, 
"has been too much presented in the garb of her 
past." It is in a spirit of chastened contrition, then, 



328 A I.OriEUKU IX NKW KXGr.AXD 

and in the face of this overwhehning fact of the 
goUlen dome refuting siibhniely while one argues, 
that one gives up too insistent a dwelhng upon the 
past of a city whose present pulse beats vigorously 
in a regenerate system towards progress, develop- 
ment, and gro^^i:h. 

The 2)hrase in the book sticks in the memory: it 
pictures Boston as a vital, young city, suffering 
from the repeated emphasis which most writers have 
laid and continue to lay upon its early history, upon 
its quaintness, upon its literary associations, ignor- 
ing its fabulous out-reach into those active suburbs 
which combine with the city proper under the new 
name, " ]Metropolitan Boston " — ^letropolitan Bos- 
ton, including some forty-three cities and towns, 
comprising an area of about live hundred square 
miles, and a population of one and a half millions, 
making one great, homogeneous, industrial unit. 

We have seen in northern Italy, even in Venice 
itself, a much more acute form of the same con- 
dition — the vitahty of a city struggling against 
tradition, against the cramping ])lausibility of the 
a\sthetic forces, which, while holding to the charm 
and elegance of a more or less glorious past, op- 
erate towards stagnation in the life and normal 
evolution of the people and the place. Boston has 
felt somethino- of this hampering influence. And 



BEACOX HILL 329 

looked at from a certain point of view one becomes 
almost sympathetic with the healthy, vigorous de- 
nial of every factor but the present moment, 
stripped of its traditions and free to arrive at a 
glory that may be vastly different but that shall 
be all its own. 

The changes that have come to Boston have been 
more extraordinary in their way than those which 
have affected New York — its growth has been 
perhaps more phenomenal, its conditions rendered 
2:)eculiar and in a sense unwieldy because of the out- 
standing characteristics of the Piu'itan colony still 
operative, as it would seem, in their fullest sense. 

The whole region now roughly included in the 
term Metropolitan Boston was originally sprinkled 
with small settlements, many of them contempo- 
rary with Boston town, but separate and distinct 
from it and from one another, and each a political 
unit in itself. These became populous and ex- 
panded until their boundaries coalesced. Yet many 
of them, most of them, persisted as independent 
communities, refusing to become absorbed in the 
logical way of cities, ])referring to be villages and 
towns; sometimes, as in the case of Brookline and 
Cambridge, almost com])letely surrounded by the 
territory of suburban Boston proper, and in some 
cases much nearer, actually, to the heart of the old 



330 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

town than several districts included in the city 
limits. 

While such curious conditions exist in some other 
large cities, Boston presents the most conspicuous 
example of the kind, and it is for this reason that 
the census reports give so false an idea of the actual 
or virtual size and population of the New England 
capital. While New Yoriv was able a few years 
ago to add to its census report the population of 
the whole of the adjacent large and populous city 
of Brooklyn, and to increase its area to ten. times 
its original size by the simple annexation, of four 
contiguous boroughs, Boston's expansion has not 
only been almost entirely by the laborious process 
of redeeming marshes and mud flats, and making 
land, but in the early days of the eighteenth century 
the town suffered actual losses of territory. In 
1705, part of Boston, called Muddy River, was 
established as Brookline; in 1739, Winnissimet, 
Riminey Marsh, and PuUen Point withdrew and 
became a separate entity under the name of Chelsea. 

These numerous smaller cities and towns which 
surround Boston and which depend upon the me- 
tropolis commercially and industrially as the centre 
of their activities and interests, hedge and block her 
territorial expansion within an artifically restricted 
area of only thirty-eight square miles; while the 



BEACON HILL 331 

population, of which she is the central attraction 
and raison d'etre, she has, owing to her inability to 
provide space for its accommodation, been obhged 
to present, as who shall say, to swell the reckoning 
of these surrounding districts, meanwhile holding 
her own down to a mere eight hundred thousand. 
Cambridge alone would, if annexed contribute one 
hundred thousand to Boston's total, and Brookline, 
with thirty thousand more, would be a valuable 
addition as " the richest town in the world," a super- 
lative that is everywhere conceded. 

It is the fancy to describe Boston in four zones, 
classified with precision by the arrangement of its 
water areas. The very heart or centre, the kernel 
of the nut, is the concentrated business centre — 
the core, shall we say, of the warty pear ? Tangled 
and complicated by the oldest streets, opened some- 
what by the great fire of the early seventies, yet 
still odd and crazy enough in all conscience; with 
blind alleys, with artful inequalities made equal by 
short flights of steps leading from street to street, 
with strange backways for the knowing ones, con- 
taining the choicest remnants of Boston's first 
century — who could not love a thing so full of 
whimsies, character, personality? 

The skin of the kernel — to choose the adaptable 
figure — adhering closely as is proper, is formed of 



332 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

the three areas named in the favourite New Enghsh 
fashion, for as many points of the compass — the 
North End, the South End, and the West End, 
distinctions clearly and succinctly made and in most 
common parlance bj^ the townsfolk, so that not to 
master them is to be without command of current 
speech. 

Across bridge and ferry is the shell of Boston, 
the three maritime suburbs — Charlestown, East 
Boston, and South Boston. South Boston must be 
understood as quite separate and distinct from the 
South End; in the days of the original peninsula 
it used to be styled Dorchester Neck. And without 
the whole lies the husk or fourth zone which includes 
the truly suburban districts of Dorchester, Hyde 
Park, Roxbury, West Roxbury, and Brighton. 

Quite apart from all of these divisions is yet 
another section — the stronghold of the great tra- 
dition, the last foothold of so-called fashionable 
life, driven from the Hill to South Boston, from 
South Boston to this extent of made territory fab- 
ricated from the mud flats of the Charles River 
basin. This was one of the most important as 
well as one of the most lucrative improvements 
made to Boston. In the early part of the last cen- 
tury the Back Bay was an expanse of water and 
marsh extending; from the foot of the Common to 




THE COMMON AND BEACON STREET. 
PHOTOGRAPH BY HELEN MESSINGER MURDOCK. 



BEACON HILL 333 

the uplands of Brookline, and from the Charles 
River to the Boston neck, that narrow strip of land 
over which at times the tides met and flowed. The 
movement was instigated by Uriah Cotton, who in 
1814, organized and incorporated the Boston and 
Roxbury Mill Corporation, whose mill dam fol- 
lowed what is now practically the line of Beacon 
Street between Charles Street and Sewall's Point, 
Brookline. A roadway built along the mill dam 
and called Western Avenue, later became the pres- 
ent continuation of Beacon Street. The construc- 
tion of this dam had another potent effect upon 
Boston, it brought the first recorded importation 
of Irish labour, the nucleus of the Irish colony, 
which, rooting easily, was later to dominate, po- 
litically, the town. 

The actual filling in of the Back Bay for resi- 
dential purposes was done between 1857 and 1894, 
and added nearly six hundred acres to the city. 
At the outset of the work Charles Street marked 
the line of the river, and the Back Bay ran along 
the foot of the Common; covered the Public Gar- 
den, crossed Park Square, approached the shore 
line of the South Bay near Washington Street — 
the original road over the Neck — and after fol- 
lowing its course for a distance wandered back to 
the uplands of Brookline. 



334, A L01TP:UKK IX XFAV ENGLAND 

The Charles Kiver hasiii oeeiipies the centre of 
the park systems of hoth Boston and the ^letropoh- 
tan district, inchiding Cambridge, and from it 
groM's that chain of parks which is Boston's pride. 
As early as 1903, its banks were dedicated to this 
purpose, while previous to that time " Charles- 
bank" — that stretch of park along Charles Street 
between the dam and the Cambridge Bridge — had 
been created and set apart by a strong sea wall as 
the first part of the then projected Charles River 
Embankment. 

The whole of this part of the embankment which 
lies at the base of Beacon Hill is built upon what 
was formerly West Cove, and most of the material 
used for its tilling in came easily from the destruc- 
tion of the nearest of the three original peaks of 
the Tri-:Mountain — West Hill, Copley's Hill, or 
]Mount Vernon, as it was styled according to its 
several proprietors. A sea wall had been built 
along the line of the Charles River, west of the 
present line of Brimmer Street, which facilitated 
the reclamation of these flats; as the hill was cut 
down it was readily dumped into the space between 
the sea Avail and the shore line. The operation 
lasted during the greater part of the last century 
and was not completed until 1894, or thereabouts. 
The section thus made added about eis'htv acres to 



BEACON HILL 335 

the area of Boston and reached from Beacon Street 
to Lowell Street, or from the Common to the North 
Station. Part of the work was carried on as part 
of the enterprise of the " JMonnt Vernon Pro- 
prietors," the snccessors to the Blaxton-Copley 
estate. 

Across the river, on the Cambridge side, a long 
stretch of flats has been recently reclaimed and im- 
proved by the erection of the handsome classic 
buildings of the INIassachusetts Institute of Tech- 
nology. It has been amusingly said that the new 
" Tech " does not abandon its native soil in moving 
across the river from Boston, since the made land 
upon which it stands consists of the excavations 
from the Boylston Street Subway. 

When the enibanlvinent was completed the public 
seemed loath to avail themselves of its beauty and in 
order to bring it before their attention the mayor of 
Boston had the national fetes celebrated there in- 
stead of upon the Common, as is again customary. 
At the same time the Beacon Street dwellers re- 
sented this intrusion upon the sacred privacy of 
their outlook, with true Boston reserve. Even now 
the possibilities of the esplanade seem only to liave 
been touched upon. But one meagre tea-house, of 
the stand-up-and-get-it-over type, is to be found 
throughout its entire length, which miglit ]>e made 



336 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

so charming with pavilhons and terraces where 
tea and ices and cold drinks — "tonics," as they 
quaintly call them — might he enjoyed in the true 
Parisian fashion on sj^ring and smnmer afternoons 
and evenings. 

If the householders in Beacon Street refused to 
enjoy the prospect of a scheme to cgayer their rear 
view they as hluntly declined to contribute any 
charm to the somewhat dreary expanse that their 
own dark red and intensely stupid houses present 
to the loiterer upon the river or the pretty esplanade 
to which the}^ turn a cold, forbidding shoulder. It 
must be said that the colour of this modern brick 
resembles nothing so much as the exposed outside 
cuts of roast beef that have long lain upon the 
butcher's block awaiting custom, and here upon the 
uncompromising backs of the fashionable houses of 
the Back Bay, are no mitigating growths of vines 
or ivy, to drape their unseemliness. 

On the other hand the Tech buildings, so hand- 
some in their standard fashion, seen close at hand 
upon Cambridge soil, fail of really effective com- 
jjosition from the distant view. Erected entirely 
of concrete, ihey have, from across the water, an 
indescribably chill sense of unrelieved smoothness, 
of cold, rigid horizontals. They have more the 
effect of models of buildings than a realization of a 



BEACOX HILL 337 

living, breathing university, teeming with the vi- 
tahty of youth and vigour. 

Yet the new Tech furnishes all the essentials 
lacking in the old buildings only recently vacated 
on Boylston Street. William Welles Bosworth 
was the architect; he conceived the problem as a 
scheme of courts, with the main one opening to- 
wards the water to receive the full benefit of the 
southern sun, always a consideration in this climate. 
A dome over a portico at the north end of this court 
emphasizes the character of the group, the whole 
so planned that the various departments may be 
reached imder a continuous roof, and with all the 
workshops in the rear, where future expansion may 
be free and service from the railroad near at hand. 

The architectural character of the buildings is 
simple to the point of severity, the classic standard 
has been followed in its utmost purity, but the vast- 
ness of the area covered — the main building is one 
ninth of a mile in length — calls for a greater gen- 
eral elevation and a more important culmination 
than is offered by the low dome. Very charming 
vistas of these buildings may be had from the de- 
scent of Pinckney and Revere streets, where the 
mass piles to better advantage ; but when seen from 
directly across the basin the ensemble is flat and 
unrelieved. The Charles River even at this point 



338 A LOITEKKK IN NEW ENGLAND 

is too turbulent a stream to reflect tlie ajndiitecture, 
as a placid lake would have done to its grt^at ad- 
\^aiitagie, an effect doubtless cinrnted on to increase 
the apparent height. It is now plannevi to intrx>- 
duce a pool of water within the main court itself, 
which will reflect the building very beautifully and 
contribute to its chann. 

It seems rather a perverse bit of Puritanism to 
have coupled the people's playgroimd with the 
coimty jail, that handsome granite structure with 
the cupola which Ix^rder^ Charlesbank, at the cor- 
ner of Cambridge Street, keeping, as it were, guartl 
upon the diversions of the inliabitants of the north 
slope of Beaci^>u Hill, who take great pleasure in 
their breathing spot. 

The expansion of the Massachusetts General 
Hospital has ahnost completely walled in a dis- 
tiuguisheii old building, the nucleus of the gnnip. 
built by Charles Bultinch, in 18:?!. One has to 
walk thr*.>ugli Fruit Street, past the jail and on 
be\"Oiid the nuxiern brick additions ti> the original 
plant, before discovering through the grill of the 
gate>\"ay to the gartlen. the flue mellow jx>rtico of 
Ionic columns and the sha|iely dome, which ap|>eal 
at once as identifying the object of one's quest. 
Chelmsfonl granite is the amiable material, a sbnie 
of warm colour and delightful quality: it was pre- 



BEACOX HILL 339 

pared for use, the old descriptions say, b}' the con- 
victs of the State Prison. 

Though the j^erfect symmetry of the edifice has 
been hurt by the extension of the wings and altera- 
tions to the pediment, made two years after the 
architect's death, the solid masoiuy and dignity of 
the jjortico, its simple columns with their graceful 
capitals partially covered with ivy, as well as the 
odd character of the roof, with its four terminal 
chimneys, mark this sequestered building as one 
of the handsome features of the early city. When 
built it stood on a small eminence open to the south, 
east, and west, the beautiful hills which surround 
Boston were seen from its every part, while the 
grounds on the southwest were washed by the 
waters of the bay. There is still an extensive bit 
of the old, ample garden, and a large luxiu'iant tree 
spreads protecting branches across the left of the 
composition as seen from the gateway, and fresh, 
green ivy clambers upon the foundations and 
columns. 

The institution, next to the Pennsylvania Hos- 
pital, is the oldest of its kind in the country, having 
been founded in 1799, and opened for patients in 
1821. It stands upon what was formerly Prince's 
Pasture, purchased by the incorporators, in 1817, 
and on the Fourth of Julv, 1818, the cornerstone 



340 A LOITEUEH IX NEW ENGLAND 

of the Bultinch building was laid with impressive 
ceremonies. ^IcEean Street which runs at a right 
angle to the grountls on the north side, preserves 
the name of one of the chief benefactors. 

At about the time of the tirst alterations the 
operating theatre, situated under the dome, be- 
came famous as the scene oi' the tirst }niblic demon- 
stration oi' the use of anivsthetic in operation. Sul- 
phuric ether was employed and October 16, 1846 
has since been recorded as Ether Day. 

Beacon Hill, like a shapely beehive, its summit 
cappeil by the golden dome of the State House, 
its western slope relieved by the excellent spire of 
the Church of the Advent and the earlier brick 
house of worship on ^Nlount ^'ernon Square, pre- 
sents the really chic note to the view from the 
waters of the Charles River basin. Each street, 
its earthway distinctly visible from base to sunmiit 
from the esplanade, has its peculiar allure, but 
Mount ^'ernon Street appeals especially as the 
most wayward of those which mount directly 
towards the crest. 

The quaint old meeting-house, which juts out of 
line at the corner of Charles Street, its tenure im- 
minently threatened by the radical improvements 
on foot in this quarter, was built in 1807. by the 
third Baptist Society of Boston and so occupied 



BEACON HILL 341 

until 1877 when the society merged with the First 
Baptist Church, now on Commonwealth Avenue. 
At this time the free negro settlement occupied the 
"dark side" of the Hill, the north slope below 
^lyrtle and Revere streets, where before and after 
the Civil War had been the centre of anti-slavery 
agitation. The hill dwellers of the soutli side fol- 
lowed the New England tradition of ignoring what 
displeased them, and between the smug complac- 
ency of the sunny side and the dark border of 
2)athetic squalor and tragedy the line was shar})ly 
drawn, as it is indeed drawn to this day against 
the unfortunate foreigners who struggle for foot- 
hold there. ISlen there are who remember class riots 
between the boys of both camps, in which the little 
blacks were always routed and sent back to their 
own side to seethe in sedition against the upper 
hand of " respectability," and the seeds of abolition 
and anti-slavery were nurtured in these steep, 
crowded streets of the inhospitable hive. 

A little brick meeting-house in Smitli Court 
which ran out of Belknap Street (now Joy) about 
half way down the swift descent below Myrtle 
Street, was the refuge of a small band of agitators 
who had been barred from tlie privileges of Faneuil 
Hall, on a cold night in January, 1832, and here in 
the school-room of the small negro church was 



342 A LOITERKU IX NEW ENGLAND 

organized the New England Anti-Slavery Society 
whose work was to effect so much. Here on this 
occasion Garrison spoke his remarkable prophecy: 
" We have met to-night in this obscure school-house: 
our numbers are few and our influence limited : but 
mark my prediction: Faneuil Hall shall ere long 
echo with the principles we have set forth. We 
shall shake the nation by this mighty power.'' 

Its detachment from its environment marked by 
the character of the simple, substantial building, 
with its long, rounded windows, the house has 
passed to the use of the present residents of the 
quarter as a Jewish synagogue, and an inscription, 
in Hebraic characters, on the end wall towards Joy 
Street, calls attention to its present service. A 
marble slab on the north front commemorates the 
activities of Cato Gardner, an African native who 
raised a considerable part of the money for the 
erection of the church and by his enterprise inspired 
others of the congregation to do the same. A com- 
mittee of white men was invited to superintend the 
building, completed and dedicated in 1806. 

A\^lien the Baptists gave up the Mount Vernon 
Square church they sold it to the leading African 
IMethodist Episcopal congregation of Boston, and 
the pretty old building with its stopper-like steeple, 
many of its features suggesting Bulflnch designs, 



BEACON HILL 343 

became known to the witty ones, for obvious rea- 
sons, as the Ink Bottle, and when service was over 
and the congregation began to disi)erse, it was the 
waggish fashion to say that the Ink Bottle had up- 
set. Part of the land for this church the Baptists pur- 
chased by subscriptions to the undertaking and part 
was given by the JNIount Vernon proprietors. The 
house is handsomely constructed of brick, seventy- 
five feet square, exclusive of the tower, on which is 
a cupola with a bell, the first used by a Baptist 
society in Boston. This bell rings the hours with 
a thin, brazen timbre delightfully suggestive of old 
times and old places. Its voice sounds the pitch of 
this picturesque locality. 

If the Technology buildings across the river lend 
charm to the prospect as one descends Revere or 
Pinckney streets, from the brow of the hill, the old 
coloured meeting-house in its widened setting, im- 
2)arts a still rarer quality to the view from the 
whole extent of JNIount Vernon Street — perhaps 
the most beautiful vista in Boston — beautifid be- 
cause it is so absolutely unimpaired by any modern 
intrusion. The chain of gardens before the houses 
on the north side of the way lead sweetly down to 
the discreet retirement of TiOuisburg Square, its 
line of Boston dwellings, with bowed fronts, looking 
out upon the exclusiveness of the railed enclosure 



344 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

of green, saturated with an atmosphere of the Old 
World. Above the square the pitch of the hill de- 
clines abruptly into the disorder of Charles Street, 
at which point a divergence to the left throws the 
old church into prominence, its tower silhouetted 
against the spire of the Church of the Advent. 

Louisburg Square is described as the site of 
Blaxton's famous sj)ring, as well as his orchard. 
In 1834 it was enclosed and given its present name 
to commemorate the capture of the French for- 
tress during the French and English wars of the 
eighteenth century. The position of Louisburg 
upon Caj)e Breton Island, commanding the en- 
trance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, gave the town 
great importance in war time. The whole island 
had been secured to the French by the peace of 
Utrecht in 1713, and the French government 
erected a formidable fortress enclosing and com- 
manding the excellent harbour, making it the chief 
stronghold of France in America, using it as a 
rendezvous for their fleets and privateers. 

The iDort became an ever threatening danger to 
the New England fishermen on the Banks on ac- 
count of which, in 1745, Governor Shirley of JNIas- 
sachusetts induced the colony to undertake the re- 
duction of the post. An escort of one hundred 
New England vessels accompanied Colonel Wil- 



BEACOX IIILI. 345 

liam Pepperell in command of 3,600 men, mostly 
from Massachusetts, and joining a British squad- 
ron under Commodore Warren, the undertaking 
was accomplished. Three years later, by the terms 
of the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisburg again 
reverted to France, but in 17 5S the town was re- 
captured by a large force under General Amherst 
and Admiral Boscawen. 

Under French dominion Louisburg was a flour- 
ishing centre for the fisheries, but as an FiUglish 
province it has deteriorated into a mere stopping 
place for steamships. 

The form of Boston, said an ancient writer, is 
like a heart, built within a cove or bay which lies 
between two strong hills on the sea and overtopped 
by a third forming natural facilities for fortifica- 
tion. The hills which overlooked the sea were well 
guarded by artillery and battery, while up upon a 
third stood a beacon and "lowd babbling guns," 
to give notice "by their redoubled echo to all their 
sister townes." 

The three hills referred to were Copi^'s Hill, 
Fort Hill, and Sentry or Beacon Hill. The high- 
est peak of the latter rose one hundred and thirty- 
eight feet above the level of the sea; the rugged 
bluffs of Fort Hill stood eighty feet high; and 
Copp's Hill, a level plain upon its summit, was 



346 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAND 

fifty feet above the water. Except for the three 
oldest burying grounds of the town, a few ancient 
buildings and some narrow streets in the North 
End, the Boston of its first century has been ob- 
literated ; its topography has been completely trans- 
formed. Fort Hill, its locality recorded by the 
curve of Franklin Street, while Fort Hill Square 
holds the name, was levelled off between 1866 and 
1872; Copp's Hill has been much modified, though 
easily identified by the cemetery which marks its 
site; while Beacon Hill lends its name to a well- 
defined district or neighbourhood. 

The golden dome of the State House, in which 
the beauty of the Common, the Garden, the wliole 
l^eninsula culminates, marks a point but little 
higher than was the original crest of the Tri- 
JMountaine, as seen from the Charlestown settle- 
ment, or in the days of the colony and town. The 
tip of the hill was levelled off and dumped sum- 
marily into the old INI ill Pond, which appears upon 
the early maps, as an important contribution to the 
soil needed for its filling in. The summit of the 
original hill was level with the rail at the base of 
the State House dome. 

Beacon Hill was the centre of the three peaks of 
the original "mountain." Pemberton Square, Louis- 
burg Square, and the State House Extension oc- 



BEACON HILL 347 

cupy the aj^proximate localities of these peaks. 
At Pemberton Square was Cotton Hill, named for 
the famous Colonial preacher, John Cotton, who 
resided near it in a house given him by the youth- 
ful governor of Massachusetts, Sir Harry Vane. 
At Louisburg Square was Copley's Hill, or West 
Hill, comprising part of Blaxton's lot. 

The highest peak of the mountain was found 
immediately useful to the early settlers as a look- 
out, and was from this use called Centry or Sentry 
Hill, until 1635, when a beacon was set upon it to 
signal the adjacent towns in case of danger. The 
beacon was a primitive affair, described as a tar 
barrel elevated upon the top of a mast. Occasion- 
ally replaced, it kept watch for generations on the 
sunmiit of the hill, until 1789, when, being blown 
over by a storm, Charles Bulfinch, then a youth 
just returned from a tour of England, France, 
and Italy, designed the monument of which a 
recent copy marks approximately the original 
site. 

The Bulfinch design consisted of a column of the 
Roman Doric order, built of brick, covered with 
stucco, with foundation and mouldings of stone, 
the shaft crowned by a gilded eagle, carved in wood, 
supporting the arms of America. Instead of bear- 
ing aloft the danger signal in time of war, it bore 



348 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

inscriptions to commemorate "that train of events 
which led to the American Revolution, and finally 
secured liberty and independence to the United 
States." With the demolition of the top of Beacon 
Hill went the destruction of the column, interest- 
ing not only as an early work by a celebrated 
architect, but as the first public monument erected 
to commemorate the events of the Revolution. The 
eagle, or a copy of it, was placed over the presi- 
dent's chair in the Senate Chamber of the State 
House and the tablets were cared for by being 
set in a corridor wall. When the present monu- 
ment was erected, casts of them were inserted in 
place. 

This monument was the first of the improve- 
ments which were to transform Beacon Hill from 
a state of almost pristine simjjlicitj^ to the abode of 
substantial elegance. Until about the time of the 
Revolution the hill was largely noted as the resi- 
dence of two country gentlemen — - John Singleton 
Copley, the painter, and Thomas Hancock, a 
wealthy merchant. Beacon Street was a lane which 
led past their estates. At the head of the lane — a 
tablet marks its site — stood, until 1863, the famous 
Hancock mansion, built in 1737, of Braintree 
boulders, squared and hammered, with old freestone 
trimmings. Thomas Hancock was a native of 




PORTRAIT OF JOHN HANCOCK, BY JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY. 
"WNED BY THE CITY OF BOSTON. 



BEACOX HILL 349 

Braintree, and he chose the stone of his locahty for 
the material of his sumptuous dwelhng. His house 
was the first building in New England to be built 
of gi-anite, for King's Cha^Del was not built until 
1749; it was typical of the style of its period and in 
its day quite the feature of the town, standing well 
back within a garden, enclosed by a stone wall, 
topped by a wooden fence, and thickly planted 
with shrubbery and trees. The house passed from 
its builder to his nephew, Jolm Hancock, the 
governor. 

Before 1770 Coplej^ had purchased twenty acres 
or more bordering the Common, between Walnut 
Street and the water. Failing to foresee the destiny 
of the hill, the painter consented to sell to the 
jNIount Vernon proprietors his estate for a mere 
fraction of its value when he left Boston to take 
up his residence in London. Finding the value of 
the land enormously increased by the project of the 
new State House, he sent his son. Lord Lyndhurst, 
to this country to claim restitution; but all efforts 
to recover an adjustment failed, and the younger 
Copley, in 1796, executed a deed of the property 
to Jonathan JNIason and Harrison Gray Otis, a 
rising young lawj^er and politician. Otis built 
upon part of the land secured from Copley that 
extremely characteristic square dwelling, with a 



350 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

cupola, half-way down JNIount Vernon Street on 
the north side. It stands back in a garden with 
entrances on the two sides. A wide carriage way 
leads back to a paved court with an interesting 
wall fountain, quite palatial in character. 

The Society for the Preservation of New Eng- 
land Antiquities has recently acquired the first of 
three mansions which Harrison Gray Otis built for 
himself on Beacon Hill. It stands retired behind 
a row of modern shops on Cambridge Street, and 
may be seen from the whole descent of Hancock 
Street as one goes towards the North Station. It 
was built in the same year as the State House, and 
its interior woodwork, much of it remarkably pre- 
served through a century of changing ownerships, 
makes its second story drawing-room one of the 
handsomest in Boston. The house had ample 
grounds, outbuildings, and stables, and must have 
ranked well in its day. Its restoration disclosed 
many samples of old wall paper uncovered in the 
course of repairs, including two with landscape 
designs on the second floor. 

Otis was a very considerable figin*e in Boston in 
his day. He is described as a man of winning per- 
sonality, keen intellect, and a gift of oratory which, 
coupled with the advantage of influential relatives 
and connections, made his rise quick and certain. 



BEACOX HILL 351 

He had the genius for money-making, and before 
he was thirty years of age was ready to build, upon 
this site acquired from his father-in-law, William 
Foster, this beautiful house. 

He had been admitted to the Suffolk bar in 
1786, and soon became one of the leading lawyers 
in Boston. He speculated in foreign commerce, in 
western lands, in property in Maine and Georgia, 
and in local real estate. As a member of the 
Federal party, the gentleman's party of the time, 
he made his political debut, and by a remarkable 
sjjeech in Boston's town meeting, in 1796, was able 
to sway a people, whose traditions were all anti- 
Federalist and Democratic, to an overwhelming 
vote of confidence in Washington's administration. 
Otis received instant recognition from his party 
and was appointed United States District Attorney 
and later member of congress. 

During the time that he spent in Philadelphia, 
in John Adams' administration, the Cambridge 
Street home became a summer residence where 
]Mr. and Mrs. Otis dispensed a liberal hospitality 
to people of importance. In 1801, however, he 
gave up his seat and sold the mansion to Thomas 
Osbourne, betaking himself to the Mount Vernon 
Street house, already built. Six years later he 
erected his third town house, which stands, its ex- 



352 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

terior practically unaltered, facing the Common.^ 
In this house he died suddenly in 1848. 

JNIeanwhile the town of Boston had bought from 
the numerous heirs of Thomas Hancock that por- 
tion of his estate known as the governor's pasture, 
and Charles Bulfinch had been chosen architect of 
the new State House to be erected thereon. Sev- 
eral old prints exist which show the relative posi- 
tions of the State House and the Bulfinch monu- 
ment behind it, standing perilously upon the brink 
of the ragged remnant of the hill as it underwent 
excavation for the filling in of the ]Mill Pond. The 
two bore each other company until 1811, when the 
town sold the land on which the monument stood, 
and it was taken down and the hill destroyed. 

Bulfinch was born in Boston in 1763, and was 
therefore thirty-two years of age when he received 
the commission for the designing and building of 
the Boston State House. This was shortly after 
his return from Europe, where he had spent some 
years after graduating from Harvard, and he had 
already shown his ability by his treatment of the 
Franklin Crescent, a complete innovation in this 
country, founded upon the work of the Adam 
brothers, the fashionable Scottish architects, who, 
in 1768, had laid out the Adelphi Terrace in Lon- 

^ No. 45 Beacon Street. 



BEACOX HILL 353 

don, showing a novel treatment of an entire block 
of buildings under one architectural scheme. The 
Franklin Crescent, with its long row of simple 
Colonial houses, broken in the centre by a more 
elaborate building which marked the entrance to 
Arch Street, stood jjractically intact until 18.55, 
but was totally destroyed before the great fire of 
the early seventies, which gutted this old section 
of the city. 

At the time of the projection of the State 
House there were no buildings of any size or pre- 
tensions in the country. A few public buildings 
of good taste stood, it is true, in Xew York and 
Philadelphia, but nothing approaching the style 
and pretensions of the ^Massachusetts capitol. 
Washington was in its incipiency, the National 
Capitol merely a suggestion in the minds of the 
planners of that city. It must therefore have been 
with the utmost pride and joy that young Bulfinch 
threw himself into the work of creating the building 
which was to stand out prominently amongst the 
features of its e^^och. 

The extensive alterations which have disclosed 
and threatened its worlcmanship have shown the 
rare solidity and honesty of the execution; had it 
been otherwise the building would never have sur- 
vived its experiences at the hands of unscrupulous 



354 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

politicians, whose one great desire has been to do 
away with the encumbrance upon Beacon Hill and 
replace it by a modern practical building. Their 
persistence has accomplished much, imhappily, yet 
the stand was taken at the acute moment [in 1895] 
when only the most urgent expressions of public 
opinion saved the historic edifice from complete 
demolition. 

The chaste exterior of the original State House, 
" a sort of Adam architecture of the noblest type," 
as Coleridge, the Lord Chief Justice of England, 
wrote a friend in 1883, is readily distinguishable 
from the extensive marble wings of yesterday, 
which destroy the symmetry of the Beacon Street 
front, and the earlier extension, whose logical 
approach is from Bowdoin Street. The Bulfinch 
hijou is thus in a manner encased, dishonoured, 
overwhelmed by the bulk of the modern additions. 

While the choice relic speaks most eloquently 
and beautifully for itself, and has within itself been 
most carefully and reverently considered, curiously 
enough a theme so fruitful has inspired no follower 
of the monumental work done by ]Mr. Glenn Brown 
for the National Capitol, and by JNIr. I. N. Phelps- 
Stokes for the City Hall of New York, to produce 
a permanent and worthy record of the original 
treasures of the INIassachusetts State House. 




THE NEW HALL OF REPRESENTATIVES STATE HOUSE EXTENSION. 
SHOWING THE SACRED COD IN PLACE OPPOSITE THE SPEAKER'S CHAIR. 



STATUE OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, 
BY SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY, LONDON, 
1826. DORIC HALL, STATE HOUSE. 




BEACON HILL 355 

The gilded dome offering itself as a glowing 
target for destroyers, it seems the more tragic that 
so little of technical description, of facsimile, or of 
photograph exists in safe portfolios to serve as 
record of the j)erfect taste and proportions of the 
building, of the details of mouldings and decora- 
tions, in case of a disaster. Such photographs as 
exist fail utterly to give the true facts and beauty 
of the rooms upon whose execution Charles Bul- 
finch spent his most loving care, thought, and 
workmanship. 

Of the laying of the cornerstone 'the annals of 
the town preserve a pretty picture. The stone, 
decorated with ribbons, was carried upon a truck, 
drawn to its place by fifteen white horses, each 
horse with a leader, and laid, on July 4, 1795, by 
Governor Adams, assisted by Paul Revere, master 
of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. 

As completed by Charles Bulfinch, the State 
House was a red brick building with balconies on 
the north and south fronts. Its columns, pilasters, 
cornices, and cupola were of wood, painted white; 
its fascias, imposts, keystones, and lintels, white 
marble. Many of the details of the building are 
interesting. The shafts of the twelve Corinthian 
columns of the front portico are formed each from 
a single pine tree, and with one exception are still 



3.56 A LOITERER IX XEW EXGLAXD 

perfectly sound. There is a tradition that the 
timber was seized by a Yankee coasting schooner 
off the Canadian shore, and that the enterprising 
captain brought his phnider to Boston, where it was 
assigned a conspicuous place on the first public 
building begun after the close of the Revolutionary 
War. Other authorities say that these trees used 
for the columns, together with the wood of which 
the cone on the " lanthorn " is carved, were brought 
from the shores of a lake in ^Nlaine. floated down to 
Boston Harbour, carted to the hill and carved on 
the spot. One of the original columns has been 
replaced, and the newer substitute is built up in 
three sections about three inches thick, in the 
modern fashion. 

The dome was at first made entirely of wood, 
but in 1802, as a precaution against fire and the 
inroads of weather, it was sheathed with copper, 
purchased as the records show, from Paid Revere 
and Son. Originally the dome was painted lead 
colour, while the cone — still there — on the top of 
the lanthorn was gold, as now. 

Until 1825 the compact little building retained 
this aspect, then the bricks were painted white, 
while the colour of the dome was unchanged ; later 
the building was painted yellow with white trim- 
mings; but it was not imtil 187J^ that the dome was 



BEACON HILL 357 

covered with gold leaf, while the white facade was 
restored to accord with the marble wings, added in 
191.5. 

Inside there is still much, despite the many dese- 
crations of its original simplicity, to recall the in- 
terior as Bulfinch conceived it when he returned 
fresh from Europe filled with the traditions of 
Palladio and the classic revival in England, under 
the Adam brothers. 

Doric Hall, upon which the central door opens, 
retains the spirit of its period. The iron and plaster 
columns, of the Doric order, are exact replicas of 
the wooden originals, taken out to make the in- 
terior fireproof, and a marble pavement follows the 
original wood flooring. Lafayette was received 
here upon his visit to the country in 1824, and 
President Monroe was guest of honour at a banquet 
in this room in 1817, when he was so impressed by 
the new State House that he invited its architect 
to aid in the construction of the National Capitol, 
in Washington. 

The standing figure of Washington, in classic 
draperj^ was made by Sir Francis Chantrey, an 
Englishman, in I^ondon, in 1826, and was given 
to the state in 1827 by the Washington ]Monu- 
ment Association. It is a cold, formal piece of 
work; but the figure is chaste and dignified, and, 



358 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

regarded ^^urely from the standpoint of decoration, 
it makes a harmonious note in its niche opposite 
the main doorway. 

The executive chambers, on the third floor, stand 
as the choicest of their kind in the country. For 
design, proportion, decoration, and detail, and as 
rooms typical of their epoch, they compare favour- 
ably with rooms of a similar character in the old 
French palaces. They moved our English visitor, 
Coleridge, to enthusiasm for " perfect taste and 
proportion: every interspace the right size, every 
moulding right, every decoration refined." 

The Council Chamber is unspoiled, it bears every- 
where the stamp of Bulfinch taste. Opposite is 
the chamber of the governor in the same style and 
equally effective. 

But these, handsome and dignified as thej^ are, 
merely prepare the mind for the really glorious 
Hall of Representatives and Senate Chamber of 
the old times, occupying the central portion of the 
structure and the original east wing. The old 
Representatives' Hall is now the Senate Chamber, 
a magnificent room, fifty-five feet square and fifty 
feet in height, richly finished in wood, painted 
white, and covered by an exquisite domed ceiling 
whose design and colour suggest the rarest Wedg- 
wood, the most perfect hand embroidery of its 



BEACOX HILL 359 

epoch. This ceihng is a perfect circle, in the form 
of a gentle sloping segment of a sphere. In the 
centre are three concentric circles of varied orna- 
ment — the centre marked by the heart of a flower, 
the bands of applied ornament alternating with an 
open-work design, pierced for ventilation. From 
this central motif the concave surface is marked 
in large, widening grooves, the base of each ter- 
minating with a circle of ventilators of delicate 
rosettes in beautiful design, the whole surrounded 
by a wreath of garlands and draperies of leaves in 
applied modelling. At the corners, filling the 
spaces, are circles enclosing emblems of agriculture, 
etc., the whole of the ceiling ornaments and details 
of the balconies and other decorations are white 
against a dark note of cobalt blue, indescribably 
effective. 

The light from above comes from three oval 
windows in the back and front, this room occupying 
the entire central portion of the Bulfinch building, 
its lower windows opening upon the main balcony 
behind the Corinthian coliunns. Under these oval 
windows were opened the present little galleries in 
1864. Over the north gallery, above the presi- 
dent's chair, is perched a carved and gilded eagle, 
either the original or a copy of the bird which sur- 
mounted the Bulfinch monument. It holds in one 



360 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

claw the shield of the state, and from its beak 
flutters a ribbon with the inscription: "God save 
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." 

Upon the modern chandelier is fixed a metal fish 
to recall the original carved and painted " Sacred 
Cod," which during the time that this room re- 
mained the Hall of Representatives hung opposite 
the eagle, suspended from the arch. When the 
new hall was built the representatives moved their 
emblem to the larger modern room, where it now 
hangs over the ladies' gallery, facing the speaker's 
desk. 

The Sacred Cod dates back to the days of the 
Old State House, certainly to 1773, when there is an 
entry on the records to show that Thomas Crafts, Jr., 
was paid fifteen shillings for painting it ; and again, 
in 1797, twelve shillings was paid to Samuel Gore 
for painting the fish before it was transported from 
the Old State House to the new. 

The same colour scheme is carried out in the old 
Senate Chamber, now the Senate Reception Room, 
in which Bulfinch completed his plan of a Doric 
interior. This room is thirty feet wide by sixty feet 
long, with a height to the top of the arched ceiling 
of thirty feet. This ceiling, quite as wonderful as 
that in the larger hall, is in the form of a canopy 
supported by columns and pilasters, running across 



BEACOX HILL 361 

the width of the room, and leaving spaces at the two 
ends of the canopy, behind the pillars, where the 
ceiling is level with the capitals. The canopy is 
marked off into large squares bordered with hand- 
some mouldings, the centres being composed of 
large, sumj^tuous, fully exj)anded lotus blooms, 
alternated with ornamental rosettes in the open- 
work design, similar to those in the Hall of Rep- 
resentatives. The exotic beauty of these two ceil- 
ings is absolutely a thing to dream about. The 
handsome pair stand to prove the supremacy of 
Bulfinch, to justify his reputation as the greatest 
American architect of his epoch. 

Of the portraits of the governors which hang in 
this room, many of them upon hooks and nails 
driven into the pure woodwork of the pilasters, 
but one — that of Winthrop, attributed to Van 
Dyke(?) — is worthy of its setting, as an original 
canvas. Most of the others are copies. 

There are many documents of public interest in 
the State Library housed in the new building, but 
none of more thrilling suggestion than the origi- 
nal Bradford manuscript. Of Plimoth Plantation, 
whose adventurous history has been dwelt upon in 
an earlier chapter. 



CHAPTER XV 
THE BULFINCH TRAIL 

Romantic Bulfinch associations crowd in npon 
the loiterer on Beacon Hill. Curiously little ac- 
count is taken of them, but this only emphasizes 
their inherent savour as the "real thing." When 
Stuart was asked why he did not put his name to 
his portraits, he replied that they were signed all 
over, a statement that Bulfinch might have made 
regarding his houses on the Hill. 

By many small architectural tricks shall one 
know them, within and without — small tricks that 
bear out the larger evidence of graceful design 
and perfect proportion. There is such evidence as 
the character and beautiful mulberry tone of the 
hand-made bricks, laid in the Flemish bond, the 
bricks turned alternately lengthwise and crosswise 
to break joints neatly and give variety to the sur- 
face; there is the still more important evidence of 
the " string course," a band of freestone which, 
running across the house, above the first story, ef- 
fectively holds together the sills and entablatures 
of the same material ; and there is the charming de- 

362 



THE BULFINCH TRAIL 363 

vice of the first-story windows recessed within shal- 
low hrick arches. 

The interiors have the Georgian dignity carried 
out in the best materials. Bulfinch used solid San 
Domingo mahogany doors with silver knobs, often 
mahogany balusters, newel posts, hand-rails; his 
mantels followed the severity of the London de- 
signs, were scrupulously shallow in accordance with 
their original use, strictly as a ledge from which 
the cloaks, or mantles, were depended before the 
log fire. They show no frills, such as deliglited the 
skill of Mclntire, the wood carver of Salem. His 
fireplaces, constructed of three solid pieces of free- 
stone, have unmistakable character and draw to 
perfection. 

Almost the only detached mansion left in the old 
part of the city, the second dwelling of Harrison 
Gray Otis, on Mount Vernon Street, is one of the 
most beautiful of the authentic Bulfinch houses. 
The gray paint conceals the old mulberry colour but 
has not destroyed the texture of the bricks, and has 
itself taken on a bloom of age. The romantic ap- 
peal of the house itself is heightened by a knowl- 
edge that its architectural features preserve those 
of the famous Franklin Crescent, designed by Bul- 
finch, and of which a few prints exist to speak for 
its elegance. The ornamentation of the facade is 



m^ A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

similar, the windows of the lower floor are set within 
shallow reeesses of hriek; from the level of the 
second floor, bound by the string course, pilasters 
rise to the roof, and at the top is a balustrade. 

For Jonathan Mason, one of the JNIount Vernon 
Proprietors, associated with Otis, Bulfinch built the 
three houses standing at the top of " JNIount Ver- 
non " — the name is thus cut in handsome lettering 
in the string course of Dr. Nichols' house, the cen- 
tral one of the three, readily recognized by its en- 
trance, which faces down INIount Vernon. When 
built this was a front entrance, meant to face Wal- 
nut Street, which it was expected would be cut 
through, where it now stops short. Though the ex- 
terior has been somewhat embellished and modified, 
the Nichols' house is in a very perfect state of 
preservation and presents most of the original fea- 
tures as Bulfinch left it. 

In the rear are the large woodsheds, built to 
hold the bulky fuel for the open fireplaces through- 
out the rooms, and these open upon a paved court 
in which may still be seen the arched outline of a 
covered passage in the old brick party-wall through 
which the adjoining house had access to a deep 
well, the only source of water for both. When the 
project of continuing Walnut Street down the 
northern slope of tlie hill was abandoned, the ad- 



THE BULFIXCH TRAIL 365 

joining house, famous as the one-time residence of 
Charles Francis Adams, our ambassador to Eng- 
land under Lincoln, which had also been built to 
face the cross street, found itself completely walled 
in on the western side, and dependent upon its left- 
hand neighboin- not only for water from his well, 
but for a right of way to the street. In the final 
settlement of this predicament the middle house 
ceded a piece of its garden for an entrance and with- 
drew the privilege of the well. The ornamental 
doorway and balcony of the Adams house are, of 
course, later additions, made when the entrance was 
changed from the old to the present front. 

Three old houses still standing at the top of Bea- 
con Street, next to the State House property, were 
built by Bulfinch, while several others facing the 
Common, as well as a pair on the south side of 
Chestnut Street and a group of three very ancient 
ones on the north side, show how vigorously his 
influence was felt in the designs of the epoch. 

In its present state of cheerful decadence it is 
hard to imagine Bowdoin Square as ever having 
been a rather reserved and altogether substantial 
residential stronghold. The quiet streets that slope 
down to its centre, it is true, carry the traditions of 
the Hill and are more or less stately and imposing, 
despite their obvious obliquity. Tlie one landmark 



366 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

which remains upon the square itself to fix its 
former elegance is the enlarged and altered resi- 
dence of Kirk Boott, now the ponderous Revere 
House, built upon a large pasture, known as "Val- 
ley Acre," owned by Mr. Thomas Bulfinch, the 
grandfather of the architect. 

Bulfinch was born across the way, in 1763, the 
site obliterated by that vastly uninteresting granitic 
mass that follows the curve of the square. Dr. 
Thomas Bulfinch, the father of the architect, had 
inherited from his father the large, wooden house, 
with a gambrel roof, of which a water-colour sketch 
is preserved in a private collection. This bears out 
the description of the homestead, a little withdrawn 
from the street, with a row of Lombardy poplars 
in front, a gate, opening on a white marble walk, 
leading to the front door. The four-acre lot, in- 
cluding the site of the Kirk Boott house, lay across 
the square on the slope of the hill, one of its boun- 
daries recorded in the pleasant ascent of shady 
Bulfinch Street, with its cool brick houses, its bits 
of old balconies. 

The Revere House has pretty well outlived the 
prestige of having been the hostelry at which the 
" Prince of Wales " put up upon his visit to the 
city in 1860. It is said that Bulfinch built the orig- 
inal dwelling, but I have been unable to verify the 



"rwWhtwW 







THE BULFINCH BUILDING, MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL. 
FROM AN ETCHING BY SEARS GALLAGHER. 



THE BULFINCII TRAIL :m 

statement. At all events it must have undergone 
many changes from its original form, and the Kirk 
Boott house "as was" has been lost in the shuffle. 
The hotel still j^i'esides, however, with an air over 
the square, and in a large, theatrical way, announces 
its antiquity ; for its features, such as the great col- 
mnns which support the roof, the sleeping bronze 
lions upon the side porch, as well as the fluted 
columns within the imposing entrance, and the elab- 
orate stair rails are a bit overdone. 

Bulfinch scarcely chose architecture as a profes- 
sion, he rather drifted into it as a result of natural 
proclivities, a strong innate sense, quickened by 
some years of travel abroad, whither his father sent 
him, upon his graduation from Harvard. His 
father and his grandfatlier before him had had this 
experience, and seem to have considered it an indis- 
pensable part of a young man's education. The 
little that is known of the younger Bulfinch's en- 
joyment of his opportunity comes down through his 
letters. They speak briefly of his impressions of 
the great monuments of France and Italy, of visits 
to London and parts of rural England, where he 
had relatives. In Paris he had letters of introduc- 
tion from Lafayette and Jefferson, but his time 
tliere appears to have been brief, while he made a 
tour of Italy in four months, giving his itinerary — 



o "^■> ■;") 



A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 



Genoa, Pisa, Siena, Viterbo, Rome, Florence, 
Bologna, Parma, Piacenzo, Milan, etc. The brief 
memoir Avhich he left to his children enumerates 
without giving his impressions of what he saw nor 
of what effect it may have had upon his future work, 
except as he remarks: " These pursuits did not con- 
firm me in any habits of buying and selling; on the 
contrary, they had a powerful adverse influence on 
my whole after-life." 

He returned to Boston in 1787 and for the next 
three or four years experimented, settling at noth- 
ing definite to indicate the bent of his mind, until 
the success of the monument on Beacon Hill at- 
tracted attention to his abilities. This, as we know, 
came down in 1811, and of the architect's other 
work, which preceded the building of the State 
House, nothing now remains. He seems to have 
worked as an amateur until circumstances forced 
him to do otherwise, and his plans of the Boston 
Theatre and the Holy Cross Chin-ch were gratui- 
tous. The Boston Theatre, in recognition of his 
services, presented the architect with a gold medal 
bearing upon its face the design of the original 
front in relief. It was a detached building at the 
corner of Federal and Franklin streets, beauti- 
fully graceful and appropriate in the classic style 
following the European models. The projecting 



THE BULFINCH TRAIL 369 

centre, faced with four Corinthian columns support- 
ing an entablature and pediment, was mounted 
over a plain basement with an arched entrance, 
flanked by a single square opening on each side. 
The order was carried over the whole front, pierced 
by three large Venetian windows in the principal 
story. These windows were provided with bal- 
conies which gave a certain festal or gala air to the 
structure, suitable to its purpose. The medal en- 
titled Mr. Bulfinch to a seat in the theatre during 
life, " benefit nights excepted." 

This theatre, built in 1793, was the first that Bos- 
ton knew. A petition to open a playhouse pre- 
sented to the legislature of 1790 had failed; a try- 
out of a performance in a stable, two years later, 
was closed by the authorities; and it was not until 
the following year that a conveyance of land was 
made to the " trustees of the Boston Theatre," of 
which Mr. Bulfinch was one. The theatre opened 
with a performance of Gustavus Vasa, with Charles 
Stuart Powell, manager. Robert Treat Paine 
wrote the prologue. For a while, out of deference 
to those who opposed it, no performance was given 
on the evening of the week-day meeting. 

Only four years after it was built the Boston 
Theatre was destroyed by fire, and, in 1798, Bul- 
finch rebuilt it after a much plainer design on the 



370 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

same ground plan. This time he lavished his care 
upon the interior, which was described as of " un- 
paralleled elegance." 

This theatre was part of a general improvement 
of Franklin Street opened by Bulfinch as one of the 
important thoroughfares of a new section of the 
city, built upon what had till lately been Town 
Cove. Town Cove was the great indentation on the 
east side of the pear-shaped peninsula, which lay 
between the headlands of Copp's and Fort Hills. 
It was the port of the early Colonial town, and 
reached inland to Franklin and Federal Streets, to 
Kilby and State Streets, to the present tangle of 
Dock Square. After Long Wharf was finished 
little was done to extend the city over Town Cove 
until 1780, when there was some further filling 
about Dock Square and at the foot of JNIerchant's 
Row. 

One of the early distilleries had occupied the site 
of the theatre, standing upon the marsh land par- 
tially drained into a fish pond located upon the gar- 
dens of a ]Mr. Barrell, whose estate was on Summer 
Street. Bm'giss' map of Boston, in 1728, shows 
these gardens enclosed by Summer Street, Cow 
Lane, Long Lane (now Federal Street), and Bis- 
hop's Lane, since changed to Hawley Street. The 
Boston Directory map for 1789 shows that no 



THE EULFIXCII T1{AIJ. ;i71 

streets were as yet laid out in this region whieli 
Eulfinch and two assoeiates j)lanned to treat in a 
manner that was to make it one of the distinctive 
features of the city. 

The handsome curve of Franklin Street, pre- 
served to this day, cannot fail to attract an obser- 
vant loiterer, though the whole of the tontine block 
erected by the architect upon its southern side has 
been destroyed. Bulfinch designed this ciu-ve, en- 
tering with enthusiasm into a scheme proposed to 
him by William Scollay and Charles Vaughan, who, 
in 1796, induced him to join with them, as his 
memoir says, " in the purchase of Mr. Barrell's ex- 
tensive garden and pasture ground," and projected 
a plan for building a row^ of houses in crescent form, 
which would give scope to his architectural ability 
and at the same time promised an alluring profit to 
his purse. 

Undeniably successful as architectiu'e, the ven- 
ture failed wholly as business, and resulted disas- 
trously to Bulfinch, who, his partners failing him, 
risked everything to carry it to a conclusion. Bos- 
ton was not yet ready to support so large a num- 
ber of expensive dwellings; forced sales followed 
and Bulfinch found himself bankru])t, his personal 
integrity leading him to surrender all his ])roperty, 
including the dower of his wife, so that, as he says, 



372 A LOITERER IX XEW EXGLAXD 

he found himself reduced to his personal exertions 
for support. Up to this time he had been a dilet- 
tante ; from now on necessity m-ged Bulfinch to be- 
come a professional, and it is perhaps in a sense due 
to the failure of Franklin Crescent that he achieved 
so brilliant a success. 

From 1793 to 1853 the crescent stood intact, fol- 
lowing the outer curve of Franklin Place, from 
Hawley to Devonsliire streets. Though the idea 
was of English origin, it is rather interesting to 
note that Franklin Crescent seems to have ante- 
dated anything of the sort actually carried out in 
London, the most prominent and familiar of these 
curves. Regent's Quadrant, not having been cut 
through the old streets above Piccadilly until after 
1812. From the fact that a plan of two semicircles 
facing each other, with a park space in the centre, 
intended as a continuation of Portland Place, had 
been designed by the Adam brothers, and was iv 
existence at the time that Bulfinch visited London, 
it has been argued that his so similar scheme was 
based upon that of the Scottish architects. 

The original design, as Bulfinch planned it, pro- 
vided for two crescents, facing each other and 
enclosing an elliptical grass plot. The failure to 
obtain all the necessary land compelled the substi- 
tution of a straight line for the northerly crescent, 



THE BULFINCH TRAIL 373 

but the lower side was completed. It comprised 
sixteen three-story houses, built in pairs, the steps of 
each pair running sidewise to the street and meet- 
ing upon a mutual railed landing over a high base- 
ment. A handsome pair of old houses in Allston 
Street, of the same epoch, shows exactly this ar- 
rangement of entrances, which in the long curved 
repetition must have been very effective. The pair 
of houses at each end was brought forward beyond 
the line of the others, as pavilions, and the central 
structure, intended as a repository for the Boston 
Library, took the form of an ornamental archway, 
and was carried higher than the rest by means of 
a low attic, supported by columns and crowned by a 
pediment. The favorite Venetian window occu- 
pied the space between the central columns in the 
middle of the block, and a half-moon window, re- 
peating the arch of the other, stood over it in the 
attic story. Under the columns was a wide cen- 
tral arch for vehicles and two smaller passage- 
ways for pedestrians; over the driveway hung for 
years the old sign, " Arch Street," to indicate the 
street to which it led. An excellent cut of the 
whole appeared in the Massachusetts Magazine, 
for 1794. 

An old print of Franklin Street, in 1855, brings 
out conspicuously the famous urn, within the en- 



374 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

closure before the houses, given by Buliinch as a 
memorial to Benjamin Eranklin, who died at about 
the time that the street was laid out, and after 
whom the crescent was named. The Franklin ]Me- 
morial, sometimes called " Franklin's Grave/' 
figures largely in contemporary decoration, and is 
well known to collectors. 

Bulfinch's first church in Boston, long since de- 
stroyed as too small for its congregation, was the 
Holy Cross, built for the Roman Catholic Cathe- 
dral in 1803. It stood on Franklin Street, just 
below the crescent, and together with the theatre 
must have made this an imposing and consistent 
neighbourhood. The style of the cathedral, instead 
of following the Wren type with the slender spire, 
was an adaptation of the Itahan Renaissance 
model as made fashionable in England by that 
earlier architect, Inigo Jones. But with the Eng- 
lish as well as the X^ew English the steeple habit 
died hard, if it died at all, and popular prejudice 
demanded some compromise, so the high cupola or 
belfry came into vogue. 

There are three such churches left standing in 
Boston, all of the vintage of 1804-1806, and all of 
the same general type — the Charles Street Church, 
so prettily set at the foot of ]Mount Vernon, the old 
West Church, in Cambridge Street, now a branch 



THE EULFIXCII TKATT. 375 

of the Public Lihrarv, aiul the Xew North, now St. 
Stephen's, at the foot of Hanover Street, near the 
P^ast Boston ferry. Of tliese, the hitter, built in 
1804, follows most closely the architecture of the 
Holy Cross, and is the only church still standing in 
Boston known to a certainty to have been the de- 
sign of Bultinch. The building has been enlarged 
by extending the back wall to the depth of three 
windows, a rain spout conveniently marks the join, 
and the interior has been much embellished to suit 
the present occupants, all the old woodwork either 
painted or destroyed, and an elaborate reredos 
placed against the Puritanical back wall to simu- 
late an altar; but the old front walls stand un- 
touched, presenting a brick facade, decorated with 
stone pilasters, a series of attic pilasters over them, 
a tower and a cupola, terminated by a handsome 
vane. 

The West Church, built in 1806, has sometimes 
been thought a Bulfinch design, but the newspapers 
of the day credit the plan to Asher Benjamin. 
Though no longer used for religious purposes, its 
setting has been so handsomely preserved by the 
library and the interior so scrupulously kept to its 
old purity, while the very clock, given by John 
Derby at its dedication, hangs, intact and going, 
upon the organ loft, that one may find much satis- 



376 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

faction in loitering therein amongst the dihgent 
readers of the neighbourhood. 

Early accounts of these churches are amusing. 
We read of the West Church that it was " congre- 
gational," the typical New England generalization; 
that it received the Scriptures " as the only rule of 
faith and practice;" that (in 1829) "its present 
pastor stands aloof from the parties which divide 
the Christian world, and adopts no other name than 
Christian to designate its faith." The music is de- 
scribed as " distinguished for its chasteness and 
skill." The New North was dedicated by a " con- 
gregational society " considered to be " Unitarian 
in sentiment"; the Charles Street Church was or- 
ganized by a "Baptist society." 

One understands better the logic of the appar- 
ently paradoxical "New Old South" to place the 
church on Copley Square, when one knows that 
there was built, in 1814, by Charles Bulfinch, as a 
finishing touch to the locality for which he had done 
so much, the New South Church, on Church Green, 
at the junction of Summer and Bedford streets. 
The church was built of the hammered Chelmsford 
granite, then coming into vogue, and partly on ac- 
count of its fine masonry, but chiefly for its richness 
of design and interior, was considered the hand- 
somest of Bulfinch's efforts in this line. Its oc- 



THE BULFINCH TRAIL 377 

tagonal plan offered an amusing variety in con- 
struction, and its portico of Doric columns, its stor- 
ied steeple culminating in a lofty and graceful spire 
gave a new note of elegance to one of the older resi- 
dential streets of Boston. Lined with handsome 
residences shaded by tall trees. Summer Street in 
those days presented the typical umbrageous vista 
of the New England town. The ground was high 
and level, and at the end of the street, beyond the 
church, could be seen the harbour. In 1868 busi- 
ness having crowded out the old houses and dissi- 
pated the congregation, the old church was demol- 
ished. The fire of the early seventies obliterated 
every trace of its former character. 

The reconstruction of the Chickering house, on 
Tremont Street, according to an original Georgian 
design, gives a somewhat glorified hint of Colonnade 
How, built by Bulfinch, in 1810, between West and 
Mason streets, facing the Mall. Though not 
treated with the formality of Franklin Crescent, 
this row of period houses, united in feeling by slen- 
der pillars, supporting a line of shallow balconies 
with wrought iron railings, overlooking the Com- 
mon, might have been a bit of transported London. 
A few of the brick fronts may still be selected as 
original, from the conglomerate mass of alteration 
and adaptation which has destroyed every vestige 



378 A LOITERER IX XEW ENGLAND 

of original architecture. If New York named its 
Colonnade Row " La Grange Terrace " after La- 
fayette's home in France, Boston was not to be out- 
done, and for a few years after the general's tour of 
xVmerica, this portion of Tremont Street was known 
as Lafayette Place, the name still remembered in 
Lafayette JNIall that stretches southw^ard on the 
Common from Park Street. 

Had Boston cherished all the work which this 
architect lavished upon the city, what a treasure of 
colonial architecture it would present! All his 
youthful work was here, all his ancestry, associa- 
tions, his interests, w^ere wnth Boston. He was se- 
lectman from 1789 to 1793, and chairman of the 
board from 1797 to 1818, and his popularity was 
such that, in 1815, towards the close of his long term 
of office, when he and two others of the board failed 
of reelection, every elected member immediately 
resigned, and on a second trial INIr. Bulfinch and 
the others were reinstated by decided majorities. 

From 1818 to 1830 Bulfinch lived in Washington, 
as architect of the reconstruction of the Capitol, 
which had been burned by the British in 1814. 
When he retin*ned to Boston he was an old man. 
His last conspicuous building was the State House, 
at Augusta, INIaine, built after a reduced pattern 
of the Boston type. The most conspicuous differ- 



THE BULFIXCII TRAIL 379 

ence in the two buildings is in the cnpohi and pe(h"- 
ment. The pediment in the latter is the full width 
of the portico and rests directly upon it, while the 
dome is low and flat, following more closely the 
model of the Massachusetts Hospital. 

Bulfinch died in Boston in 1844. His funeral 
was held in King's Chapel, and his remains were at 
first interred there in the ancestral tomb, but after- 
wards removed to ]Mount Auburn. His monument 
in that cemetery is the historic stone urn which he 
himself gave to Franklin Place in 1795, a treasure 
that he had collected abroad. When the enclosure 
of shrubbery in which it had stood for years was 
removed the urn was returned to the architect's 
sons. 



CHAPTER XVI 
THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 

The Biilfinch trail is all but obliterated in Bos- 
ton. The State House squeezed to its minimum 
of effect between dishonouring wings, backed by 
garish yellow brick additions; the charming old 
hospital dwarfed and hedged about by its up-to- 
date appendages ; Franklin Crescent destroyed, the 
Boston Theatre, the churches, the Boylston ISIar- 
ket, the JNIcLean Asylum, at Somerville, and a 
score of other buildings gone in the path of modern 
development, — there is literally nothing of Bul- 
finch's Boston, as it came from his hand, except a 
very few old houses, to substantiate the claim made 
for him as the most distinguished American archi- 
tect of his day, the earliest native architect to leave 
his impress upon the little town. 

The Boston town into which Charles Bulfinch 
was born, in the third quarter of the eighteenth 
century, was a primitive little settlement, whose 
architecture was limited to a few modest " meeting- 
houses " and a handful of colonial dwellings, of 
which the Hancock house, on Beacon Hill, was a 

380 



THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 381 

noted example. Some of the finer buildings were 
the work of English architects — Peter Harrison 
had built King's Chapel — but, for the most i)art, 
men designed their own homes in these days, em- 
ploying intelligent carpenters or housewrights for 
the building, frankly done with the materials at 
hand. When something beyond the ordinary was 
required, an ornate doorway, with fan and side 
lights and columns perhaps, was applied, with oc- 
casionally handsome entablatures over the windows 
of one story to break up a bit the severity of the 
plain surface. 

The brick meeting-houses were exceedingly plain, 
though in excellent taste, all ornamentation having 
been lavished upon the steeples, often copied from 
the English models of Sir Christopher Wren, and 
added with considerable taste and skill. No par- 
ticular record of such things was kept beyond the 
local tradition, and no particular credit was given 
to the builder, or housewright, who put them up 
with all simplicity. 

There is, for instance, a deeply rooted tradition 
in Provincetown, that the truly handsome spire, 
with its exquisite pineapple, of the old wliite frame 
church opposite the post office in that village, was 
designed by Sir Christopher (who died some years 
before its erection), which is merely another way 



382 A LOITERER IX XEW EXGI.AXD 

of savin*;' that it may have been made after his 
designs. 

^Nlany of the early comers to INIassachusetts 
brought the phms of their English homes with them, 
or at least, in building, reproduced their general 
style, altering only the pitch of the roof to shed 
the snow. Sometimes the interiors were brought 
over intact. In Plymouth the story goes that the 
old Winslow house, which stands at a shaded corner 
overlooking the harboin*, was brought over bodily 
from England, and that, in setting it up, the 
builders misunderstood the plan and reversed the 
first and second stories, which accoimts for the 
large, high ceiled rooms being on the second floor 
and the small chambers underneath. 

Paul Revere's house, in Xorth Square, Boston, 
elaborately cared for in the picturesque squalor of 
its environment, was probably a typical dwelling 
of its class at the time that it was built, and it fol- 
lows distinctly the English cottage style of its 
period. Even the Old State House, except for its 
ornate ends and deliglitful cupola, is a very plain, 
primitive structm-e whose architectural " features," 
in so far as the ends and cupola may be regarded 
as such, have the effect of applied decoration rather 
than integral parts of the design. 

Not far from Paul Revere's iiouse, in Salem 



THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 383 

Street, one of the oldest ways, near Copp's Hill, 
is the most ancient house of worship in Boston, de- 
signed, as the records say, "after the manner of 
Sir Christopher Wren," and opened for service on 
December 29, 1723. This is Christ Church, com- 
monly known as the North Church, though with- 
out exactitude, as there were other meeting-houses 
bearing this designation. 

From the summit of Beacon Hill, over the mild 
elevation of Pemberton Square, or Cotton Hill, 
the way ducks down abruptly behind the Court 
House, or often through it, to Scollay Square, re- 
vealing through Court Street an ingratiating vista 
of the Old State House, its white, storied cupola 
rising above the blackened bricks, against the soft 
gray of the new office buildings. With a choice of 
branching streets at the hubbub of Scollay Square, 
one selects Cornhill as the most rewarding in the 
matter of vistas, diving down again between the 
narrowing houses, pausing for amusement at 
" Franklin Avenue," an alley to the right, a pas- 
sageway to the right, leading by a flight of stone 
steps to the lower level of Brattle Street, famous 
for its granite block forming tlic old Quincy House 
and adjacent restaurants. 

From the corner of Cornhill and Dock Square 
is revealed the old contorted kernel of the nut in 



384 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

its most fascinating aspect ; streets run riot here in 
wildest confusion, and immediately Faneuil Hall, 
overhung by the immense height of the Custom 
House Tower, begins to dominate the prospect. It 
blocks the way in all directions, and from every 
crooked by-way poses graciously, turning its gold 
grasshojjper vane in complaisance with every shift 
of a fickle wind, laying its copper green cupola now 
against the sky, again upon the smoke gray of the 
federal tower in enchanting variety — its very dor- 
mers, round cylinders of verdigris, adding to its 
picturesqueness a character which is all of another 
time. The Bulfinch mark is upon it strongly, 
though we know that an earlier artist, Smibert, the 
English portrait painter, who came to this country 
with Peter Harrison and Dean Berkley, was its 
first architect, and that Bulfinch in his reconstruc- 
tion treated the painter's model with reverence. 

From the point where Dock Square winds into 
Union Street the old Quincy Market, that extraor- 
dinary Greek temple dedicated to the traffic of 
produce vendors, comes amazingly into the picture, 
just for a moment adding its compact bidk, its 
round flat dome, as weight and substance to the 
composition. The massive columns were brought 
from Chelmsford, through the Middlesex Canal, to 
the Boston Mill Pond, and through jMill Creek, 




PORTRAIT OF JOSIAH QUINCY, BY GILBERT STUART. 
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 



THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 38.5 

now covered by Blackstoiie Street, to the town 
dock, near Faneuil Hall. The market stands as 
a monument to the first Josiah Quincy, in whose 
administration as mayor of Boston extensive im- 
provements were made about Dock Square. Uj^on 
the new-made land the Quincy ^larket was built in 
1825-1826, at the head of Long Wharf, while to 
its back door came the waters of the sea and the 
Hingham sailing packet. 

The streets round about are fragi*ant with de- 
licious odours of wholesale fruits, vegetables, and 
flowers; every corner displays a fish or market 
house, a fruit or vegetable stall; lettuces, Boston 
market celer}^ radishes, bulge from stuffed barrels 
and crates piled upon the sidewalks, and the hoarse 
cries of the Italian and Jewish peddlers fill the 
air. 

Our route lies to the left, by Union Street, past 
the old Union Oyster House, well situated for 
prominence at the most salient part of the hand- 
some cun^e, broken by the departure of Marshall 
Lane, allowing a last short cut in the course to 
Hanover Street, the great artery of the North End. 
Old London seems always close at hand in Old 
Boston, but nowhere, perhaps, so much to the fore 
as in this Oyster House, which has its history and 
looks it, for the bricks are of an ancient pattern, 



386 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

the shingled roof is gambrel, and the shop windows, 
low and flat upon the street, look in upon white 
stalls of a century or more ago. One might fancy 
one's self in Soho. 

A last detail, Creek Square, an inlet to a tangle 
of alleys behind a quaint grog shop, one of the 
strangest bits of antiquated city, and then, just 
across jNIarshall Lane, from the corner of a dingy 
building, sticks half-way out upon the sidewalk the 
partially imbedded "Boston Stone." The stone, 
so goes the legend, was originally a paint mill, and 
was imported from England about 1700. It is 
hollow and within it rests the grinder. A well- 
known point in Marshall Lane, since 1737, the date 
inscribed on its face, it was sometimes used as a 
starting point for surveyors, and figures in old 
deeds. 

Salem Street lies diagonally across from the 
point where Marshall Lane emerges upon Hanover 
Street after passing the Boston Stone. It leads 
off at a delightful tangent towards Copp's Hill, 
making several mild angles in its course, and figiu'es 
as the characteristic pathway of the old quarter for 
many generations given over to the foreign immi- 
grants in the first stage of their assimilation. The 
narrow sidewalk drives the pedestrian, perforce, 
into the street, itself distinctively European in 



THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 387 

character, a street tlirough which vehicles pass 
rarely. 

The North End has heen called the crucible of 
the new citizen. The metal of one nation, the Irish, 
has passed through its fire ; the Italian is now going 
through the test ; while before the region is claimed 
for business, a third race seems likely to pass into 
the melting j)ot. 

Yankee families were the first occupants of these 
old clapboarded houses, many of them clearly of 
two centuries ago, where now swarms the Italian 
colonj^, in supreme possession. Half-way down, 
where Prince Street, anciently the Black Horse 
Lane, crosses Salem Street, at a point where the 
way turns and narrows, a typical old house is 
thrown into prominence. A bust of a famous 
Greek chemist stands over the entrance to the 
" Farmacia Roma," giving local colour to the street 
and establishing its Neapolitan flavour. 

Scarce has one begun to sense the proximity of 
historic things than a multitude of guides spring 
up from amongst the idle street urchins. Abandon- 
ing their games or whatever, they attack the " fo- 
restieri " with all the manner of natives and abori- 
gines, proceed uninvited, nay discouraged, upon a 
recital of all the doings of Paul Revere, his lanterns 
and his ride, relate the history of Copp's Hill, and 



388 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

reel off at high speed the epitaphs in the old ceme- 
tery in one long, monotonous tirade, almost wholly 
incomprehensible. One and all these children seem 
to have mastered the history of their locality and in 
a way appreciate and understand it. 

From the point where Salem Street narrows and 
bends to the right, the spire of Christ Church begins 
to dominate the view to the north. " Due to the 
bount}^ of Honduras JNIerchants " the steeple was 
added to the completed church in 174(0, and long 
served as a guide to mariners, standing as it did 
upon a considerable elevation. From the original 
spire, on the 18th of April, 1775, Robert Newman, 
the sexton of the church and Paul Revere's friend, 
displayed the signal lanterns which warned the 
coimtry of the march of the British troops to Lex- 
ington and Concord, while Revere himself, in a 
boat manned by friends, made his way silently 
past the Somerset towards the Charlestown shore, 
whence he was to start upon his famous ride. 

The North End in the days of the building of 
the churcli, 1723, ^vas an island, so made by a canal 
connecting the INI ill Pond with the harbour. The 
JVIill Pond in those days came close to the south 
extremity of Salem Street, and was reached by a 
bridge across the intersection of the present Han- 
over and Blackstone streets. The cornerstone of 



THE KEKXEI. OF TPIE NUT 389 

the little church near the summit of Co^jp's Hill 
was laid by the Reverend Samuel JNIyles, rector of 
King's Chapel, the original Episcopal Church in 
Boston and of which Christ Church was the first 
shoot. 

Episcopacy, as we know, was not tolerated by 
the first comers to New England, and two genera- 
tions had passed before the Church of England 
gained any foothold here. In 1686 the Reverend 
Robert Ratcliffe, sent out by the Bishop of Lon- 
don, instituted services at the Town House, and 
the people, it is said partly from curiosity, flocked 
to hear him. A church was organized at once, and 
two years later King's Chapel was built, nearly 
sixty years after the settlement of Boston. 

Still the feeling against anything verging towards 
papistry was too strong to allow a departure in the 
naming of churches such as the adoption of saints' 
names. The Puritans could think of nothing more 
original or more neutral, it would seem, than the 
points of the compass, the numerals, or the names 
of the streets upon which their meeting-houses 
stood, to distinguish them one from another, a 
stupid, characterless method, but one which suited 
their idea of plainness and simplicity. So set were 
they against any papistic tendency, that at one time 
a fine of five shillings was imposed u\Hm any one 



390 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

observing Christmas Day, and no daj^s observed 
by the Church of England were recognized in the 
revised rehgion. In this manner the people, who 
had to have some religious fetes, came to exalt 
throughout New England Thanksgiving Day, a 
day of their own invention, and therefore perfectly 
innocuous. 

The first follower of the Church of England in 
Boston scarcely dared more in those early times, 
and so the name King's Chapel was selected for 
the little wooden edifice on the border of the Com- 
mon. Erected in 1688 and enlarged in 1710, it 
soon proved inadequate to house the growing con- 
gregation, and it was to relieve the situation that, 
in 1722, subscriptions were in\'ited for the building 
of a new church in the North End. Amongst the 
contributors we find the name Peter Faneuil, the 
builder of Faneuil Hall. 

]\Ieanwhile Timothy Cutler, the president of 
Yale College, was being converted to Episcopacy, 
which made him unpopular at New Haven so that 
he resigned his position, and sailing for England 
with several of his tutors, who were also converts, 
was ordained by the Bishop of Norwich. He re- 
tiu-ned in time to accept the charge as the first 
rector of Christ Church, which had been completed 
within the year 1723, following Wren's plan for 





BOSTON, OLD AND NEW. 

FROM AN ETCHING BY SEARS GALLAGHER. 

gUINCY MARKET AND THE lEDEKAL BUILDING. 



THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 391 

St. Anne's, Blackfriars. Above the brickwork was 
the tower of wood, built in sections and surmounted 
by a spire, this design attributed to William Price. 

The first spire was blown over in a gale in 1804, 
and the present reproduction was built in 1807, 
from drawings by Charles Bulfinch. While he 
made the spire somewhat shorter than the first, he 
is said to have treated the model with reverence, 
and to have preserved the same general character. 

The chief treasure of this delightful church is 
its famous peal of eight bells, the " first cast for the 
British Empire in North America," proposed by 
Gedney Clark, of Barbadoes, and from the foundry 
of Abel Rudhall, of Gloucester. An illuminating 
tablet within the church — the tablets throughout 
tell most admirably its history — relates that these 
bells were transported free by John Rowe the 
diarist, and that they proclaimed the repeal of the 
Stamp Act on the morning -of May 19, 1766, and 
the surrender of Cornwallis in 1781. As a matter 
of fact they were rung until the outbreak of the 
Revolution by a band of change ringers, of which 
Paul Revere was a member, and in later years 
they played their part in the reception given to 
Lafavette. 

When the steeple was restored the famous bells 
were, of course, rehung, and when lately the church 



392 A LOITERER IN XEW ENGLAND 

was renovated (1912) a representative from the 
firm of Abel Rudhall, of Gloucester, came over to 
repair and rehang the bells so that they should not 
be treated by alien hands. On Christmas and other 
festal occasions they are rung according to the 
impressive English manner by the Boston Guild 
of Change Ringers, a proficient association, quali- 
fied by years of constant practice in England. This 
most interesting exhibition of skill is but little 
heralded and not too well known in Boston. 

The history of the peal is told by the bells them- 
selves, each having an inscription around its crown, 
which makes a narrative. 

At the left of the chancel in a niche, made by 
covering the window through which Newman crept 
after hanging the lanterns, stands an interesting 
old marble bust of Washington, presented to the 
church in 1815 by Shubael Bell, senior warden, 
and rejDuted to have been carved from a plaster 
bust, mentioned in the diary of William Bentley 
as having been made by Christian Giillaglier, of 
Boston, in 1790. The monument is called the first 
memorial to Washington erected in a public place; 
Lafayette is said to have seen it uj)on his visit 
to the church in 1824, and to have praised it as 
more like the original than any portrait he had 
seen. 



THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 393 

The four statuettes of cherubim, carved in wood, 
in front of the organ were presented to the church 
by Captain Gruchy, commander of the privateer 
Queen of Hungarij, in the French and Indian war 
of 1746, who, as the tablet to his memory says, " in 
parlous times " took them from a French ship 
which was conveying them to a church at Montreal. 
These, together with two excellent oil portraits by 
unidentified painters which hang in the library of 
the church, are its art treasures. The unique feature 
of the library itself is that it remains to-day within 
the original building, while similar church libraries, 
such as that belonging to King's Chapel and the 
Old South, have been j^assed on to the Athen^euni 
and the Public I^ibrary. Amongst its chief treas- 
ures is a Vinegar Bible presented to the church by 
King George II. This monarch gave also part of 
the beautiful communion service belonging to the 
church, but deposited with the INIuseum of Fine 
Arts. 

In 1912, under the rectorship of Bishop Law- 
rence, the reconstruction of Christ Church was 
undertaken at a time when it was proposed to turn 
it into a museum. The bishop turned all his influ- 
ence against giving up the church, and INIr. Charles 
K. Bolton, senior warden, representing the rector, 
undertook the complete restoration of the church, 



394 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

the alterations being carried out by R. Clipston 
Sturgis and Henry C. Ross. 

The exterior was restored to its original colour, 
for the church, following the fashion of remoter 
times, had been painted gray, and the north Mall 
covered at an early date with clapboards to keep 
out the winter storms. Inside square pews had 
been made into long pews, and these were put back 
to the original shape and the central aisle restored, 
following the plan of the pews and the nail marks 
in the floor. The pews have all been marked 
with the names of the original owners, many of 
whom were sea-captains. A large window, known 
through Burgis' drawing of 1723, was restored to 
the apse. 

The records show such pleasing and intimate 
details as this, that the clock in front of the gallery 
was made by Richard Avery in 1726, and the case 
was made by Thomas Bennett, proprietor of pew 
Xo. 56; and that Captain Cyprian Southack, the 
commander of the Province Galley, gave a belfry 
clock before the year 1735, not used until 1749, 
when it was repaired and put in place : and there is 
a very current scandal to account for the many dim 
or foggy lights in the windows. It is said that once 
when a glazier was employed to replace the glass 
he helped himself from the coffins in the crypt 



THE KERNEL OF THE NUT 395 

under the church, and this glass long huried had 
became discoloured, as it now appears. 

The crypt itself is an interesting feature of the 
church; it is reported that about twelve hundred 
l^ersons are buried in the tombs which line its walls. 
A passage runs around the crypt, and on both sides 
are numbered vaults, sometimes carved and in- 
scribed stones set in the doors, which are now being 
sealed up. The first rector, Timothy Cutler, is 
buried under the chancel. 



CHAPTER XVII 
OLD LANDJMAKKS 

The Old South Church, stripped of its century's 
OTowth of Kni>lish ivv, its whitened face chemically 
put back, in the recent rage for restoration, to the 
original red brick, stands in the heart of traffic on 
AVashington Street, on sufferance, as it were, and 
conditionally, one might judge, upon its acceptance 
of an ignoble role — fin* its chief practical function 
is to mark an entrance to the subway which runs 
under its foundations. 

" To what base use may we return at last :* " it 
seems to ask of its neighbour, the Old State House, 
which, very much restored, is made to do picket duty 
for another subterranean offence. Basely worked 
for its full commercial value, its fine lines obscured 
by additions, its facades covered by ignoble signs, 
made to yield every dollar of its potential earning 
capacity, it was only the final revolt of citizens that 
saved the Old State House when its very foothold 
became more valuable to the authorities than the 
traditions for which it stood. 

This revolt of citizens, it must be admitted, was 

396 



OLD LANDMARKS 397 

precipitated by a threatened interference from the 
JNIiddle West. Things had gone so far that the 
biiikling was about to be demoHshed when Chicago 
came forward with a handsome offer to buy the 
historic rehc, and reset it brick by brick out there 
ak)ng the lake front, where it could be worshipped 
and revered by the descendants of the Forefathers 
in a j)hice where colonial treasures were at a 
premium. Then was Boston's j^atriotic pride in- 
deed roused. The 2)roposition was refused with 
si)irit, and under the stress of the saved situation 
tenants were cleared out, signs torn off, and masons 
set to work to restore the lines, while the Boston ian 
Society was installed within as custodian of the 
museum of colonial relics. 

Down there in the heart of the business district 
these two old buildings stand as best they may 
against the tide that is all against the ideals of their 
day. While sentiment protects them and has res- 
cued them from total destruction, progress finds 
them sadly in the way, so, like honourable veterans 
who have outstayed their time, they have been 
suddenly seized upon by a thrifty system, which 
cannot tolerate idlers of whatever age or dignity, 
and made to serve the ends of the rapid transit 
M^hich rattles under their bones. Park Street 
Church has perhaps fared better — a tea shop and 



398 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

a florist occupy its foundation, singular desecration, 
however, possible only in this paradoxical New 
England. 

The great lire of 1872, coming as it did within 
two blocks of the Old South Church and destroying 
the adjacent residential section, unsettled the con- 
gregation, and two years later we find it richly 
occupying the elaborate " New Old South," built 
upon Copley Square, to keep up with the rising 
fashionableness of the Back Bay. The congrega- 
tion, though a wealthy one, as may be judged 
by the style of the new chiu'ch, allowed itself no 
sentiment for the historic meeting-house of humbler 
days. It was kicked off like an old shoe. 

For two years the building was leased to the 
United States for a post office. In the spring of 
1876 the historic landmark was advertised for sale, 
with the proviso that it should be torn down and 
removed within sixty days. The plan was to sell 
the land separately for $400,000. For the New 
Old South this was a cold business proposition, it 
wanted money merely, wanted it in the hardest 
sense of the words, at the expense of all ideals. 

A newspaper advertisement of the auction enu- 
merates the extrinsic valuables — "All the ma- 
terials above the level of the sidewalks, except the 
corner-stone and the clock in the tower," and adds 




THE ()I,n STATE HOUSE. 

FROM AN ETCHING BY SEARS GALLACHER. 



OLD LANUMAUKS 399 

the int'orniatioii that " the spire is co^'e^ed with 
copper, and there is a lot of lead on the roof and 
belfry, and the roof is covered with imported old 
AVelsh slate." 

Protests came from all over the country, but they 
were unori^'anized and on Jinie 8 the building was 
sold at auction for $1,350. The work of destruction 
was not delayed, and the clock in the tower had al- 
ready been taken down and the solid masonry at- 
tacked when George W. Simmons and Son, a 
prominent business firm, stepped in and purchased 
the right to hold the building uninjured for seven 
days. With this reprieve the friends of the Old 
South had time to handle their resources. There 
was a glorious reaction. William Everett wrote a 
short, stirring history of the meeting-house, setting 
forth the cumulative facts in eighteen pithy para- 
graphs, each one more convincing than the last. 
This was distributed, and on June 14- a town meet- 
ing was held in the church to protest against 
its demolition; speeches were made by Wendell 
Phillips and others, and a preservation committee 
was formed headed by the governor. 

The sum of money immediately necessary was 
raised by subscriptions and loans assumed by the 
Old South Association, a corporation specially 
chartered to preserve the edifice. This was fol- 



400 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

lowed by rousing demonstrations of public feeling 
in wbicb literary Boston sbone in its efforts to re- 
deem tlie pledges made. Tbere was one symposium 
for tbe benefit of the fund, held in the meeting- 
house itself in 1877, which must have rejoiced the 
heart of the assembled Bostonians. All the celeb- 
rities except Whittier were there, and most of 
them read poems composed for the occasion. Em- 
erson, Oliver Wendell Hohnes, Julia Ward Howe, 
and Dr. James Freeman Clark contributed, and 
Dr. Samuel F. Smith read his famous " America." 
Upon other occasions Edward Everett Hale, Wen- 
dell Phillips, Colonel Henry Lee, William Everett, 
Dr. Edward G. Porter. Dr. George Ellis, Henry 
W. Foote, and others lectured for the benefit of the 
fund, and here also, in 1870. John Fiske gave one 
of his first courses in American History. 

The Old South Church is not only an historic 
landmark in the richest sense of the term : it marks 
historic ground of great importance in Boston. It 
stands in Governor Winthrop's lot, which was part 
of the " green " originally granted by '" The Colony 
of ]Massachusetts Bay in Xew England " to the 
founder of Boston and described by him as "the 
governour's first lot." lentil its destruction by 
the British durino- the sie^e. the old homestead of 
the first o-overnor stood, facing* the south, with the 



OLD LANDMARKS 401 

end towards Scliool Street. "It was of wood, two 
stories high, . . . and till the meeting-house was 
erected [it was the only] building on the lot; . . . 
the premises gave the appearance indicated by the 
name, ' The Green,' being skirted along the main 
street by a row of beautiful button wood trees." 
These trees, with the house, furnished fuel for the 
British troo])s in the winter of 177o-177C. 

Standing at the corner of the "great waye to 
lloxbury" this estate, after it had passed to the 
Kev. John Norton, John Cotton's successor, was 
described as one of the sightliest in Boston. It was 
his wife, INIary Norton, who gave the ground for 
the old cedar meeting-house, erected in 1()(>9 by 
Robert Tweld, on the site of the present building, 
and it was in this little house of worship that Sir 
Edmund Andros enforced upon the colonists the 
Episcopal form of worship; it was here that Judge 
Sewall stood up in his pew while his confession of 
contrition for his share in the witchcraft dehision 
of 1692 was read to the congregation, and here, 
on January 17, 1706, was baptized Benjamin 
Franklin, born across the way, in his father's house 
on Milk Street. 

In 1729 the old cedar meeting-house, which had 
served two generations, was pulled down and the 
foundation of the present structure laid. The 



402 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

building followed the best taste of the time, a style 
so good that when Park Street Church was de- 
signed the best part of a century later by Peter 
Banner, an English architect, he did not depart so 
vastly from the earlier model. Such repairs as it 
has suffered have always strictly preserved its 
character. 

When Smibert's Faneuil Hall became too small 
for the great town meetings which preceded the 
outbreak of the Revolutionary War, adjourned 
meetings were held here, and an " Old South Meet- 
ing " became famous to Chatham and Burke. The 
old church served its purpose nobly during these 
stressful times. It was here that the great con- 
course of people waited after the Boston Massacre 
while Samuel Adams went back and forth to 'the 
State House till Hutchinson yielded and withdrew 
his regiments. A meeting of five thousand citizens 
here, on November 29, 1773, resolved that the tea 
should not be landed, and it was from the doors of 
this house that the war-whoop was raised as the 
citizens disguised as savages led the way to the 
b.arbour where the tea was destroyed. 

For five years after the massacre orations were 
delivered in the Old South Meeting-house on anni- 
versaries of the occasion. Three months before he 
was killed at Bunker Hill, Joseph Warren made 




SKETCH FOR STATUE OF WARREN, BY 
WARREN SQUARE, ROXBURY. 



PAUL WAYLAND BARTLETT. 



OLD LiVXDJMARKS 403 

his famous appearance through the window hack of 
the pulpit, while the aisles and steps were filled 
with British soldiers and officers, to deliver, in de- 
fiance of their threats, his commemorative speech. 
The account of the affair is a mixture of hoyish 
hravado and glorious coin-age, it shows the splendid 
vitality of the nation at this critical time. 

This was in the year ITT.'), when the town was 
in British occupation, and it had been given out that 
no allusion to the massacre would be tolerated and 
Warren offered himself as orator at the risk of his 
life. The anniversary fell on Sunday and was cele- 
brated on Monday, the house being thronged early 
in the day in anticipation of a sensation. The 
pulpit was draped in black, and on the platform sat 
the leaders of the colonists — Samuel Adams, John 
Hancock, and others, while the aisles were crowded 
with British officers. At the opening of the meet- 
ing it is said that Adams in his most civil manner 
asked the occupants of the front pews to make room 
for the guests to be seated, and that forty uniformed 
British officers thereupon filed into the pews and 
others filled the pulpit stairs. 

Meanwhile Warren drove up in a chaise to a 
house opposite the church where he put on his black 
gown, and to avoid the crowd which blocked the 
passage through the church he went around to the 



404 A LOirKKKK IN M".\\' KN\;i AND 

IX ar, whorv a ladder had Ihxmi prx?innx\l for him. 
aiui» gathering his robe alxiiit hiiii. eUmlnxl to the 
window in the rear of the pulpit, and in this sj>ee- 
taeular niai\ner entereil the church amidst an op- 
pressive silence, 

"His sj>eech/' Sfvid Fn>thiugliam, "imbueil Nvith 
the spirit of a high chivalry and faith, rt^soinuls 
with the clash of arms." " The scene Nvas suM inu . * 
wrote Knapp. " Tluro w;is in this apiH\Hl to 
Britain — in this description of sutfering, dyiiig. 
homers — a calm and high-souletl dotiaT\tv which 
nuist have chilkxi the bkxxl of every sensible foe. 
Such another hour has seldom happeneii in the 
history of man, and is not to be surpassevi in 
the rccv^nls of nations." 

Tlie building as it staiids is of course ahnost 
entirely rtwnstructeii within, as during the siege 
of Boston it was Iviroil of everything except the 
soundiTig Kxini and the east galleries, hundrtxls of 
lotids of dirt and gravel were carted in and tiie 
place used as a riding sclux>l for Burgoyiu "> e:n :Ury, 
The pulpit and pe^^-s. it is said, were burneii for 
fuel, and the east gtdleries were left for the acvom- 
mixiation of spev»tators. while in the first gallery a 
butfet was instalUxl to furnish refrt^shments to those 
who came to stv the feats of horsemanship. 

Oriijinally there were two pilleries. as at present. 



Jind llic jiulpit w.'is oil llic sifl*:, as now, opjjfjsifc 
I Ik* Milk Sl.rcf:!, door, vvliicli wns tlic usual f-nt f;i,nc(,'. 
'I'lif pulpil was lar^fT and lii/^licr ilia/i tlif: one. 
r(j>Iac(;(J ul'lcr the Jtcvolution, and (Jirectly in front 
of" it wire tlic (-Icvatcd scats for the (ieaeons and 
cldcis. On (;a('h side of the rriirhJIe aisle unde-r the 
jiuijiil were a niiniher of lo/i/^- seats for a;^e-f] per^ple, 
whihr foi- th<- rest the pews vvc.-re of thf; sfjuarr, hi^^li- 
haeked variety. 

IJut of all tlu; desecration cornrnitted on the 
ehnreh, that which hurt most was the destruction 
and dispersal of the scholar's lihrary }jouse(J in the 
steej)le hy tlie pastor of the church, Thornas I'rince, 
ofH- of the niost acconiplished hihhOjjhiles of his 
tirjie. The ]*rince J^ihrury, now dep(;sited with the 
Hoston I*ijl)lic Lihrary, is knf)wn to connoisseurs as 
one of the most famous of its kind and in many 
respects unifjue. l*rince at the a^^^e of sixteen sys- 
tematically laid the foundation of this collection 
of hof)ks and manuscripts, which relate to the civil 
and religious history of Xew l^Ln^land, and with 
unfla^/^In^ zeal cherished and enriched the collec- 
tion during his life. At the time of his deatli, at 
the a^e of seventy-one years, his lihrary is thought 
to have heen the most extensive of its kind that had 
ever been formed. It contained in its depleted state 
about 1,500 books and tracts relating to America, 



406 A LOITERER IX XEW ENGLAND 

amongst them, as we know, the famous Bradford 
manuseript Of Plimoih Plantation, and the Brad- 
ford "Letter Book." 

This hbrary Prince acquired partly in connection 
with his own Annals of New England; his own 
name for it was the New^ England Library, and 
many books bear the bookplate : 

This Book belongs to 

The New-England Library 

Begun to be collected by Tliomas Prince 

Upon his entry H arvard-C allege, JiTly 6, 1703. 

Prince bequeathed his collection to the Old South 
Church, of w^hich he was pastor at the time of his 
death. As for the abuse and partial dispersal of 
the library a great deal has been laid at the doors 
of the British troops, who are accused not only of 
burning pews, pulpit, and parsonage (Winthrop's 
mansion) as fuel during their riding exercises in 
the old building, but also of having kindled these 
illicit fires with the pages of Thomas Prince's rarest 
books and manuscripts. 

On the other hand very little is said of the con- 
dition in which the British soldiers found these 
books, if indeed they found them at all, a condition 
which surely would not create the impression of a 
library of this character. It is casually mentioned 
that the books and papers were deposited on shelves 



OLD LANDMARKS 407 

and ill boxes and barrels in a room in the steeple 
chamber, under the belfry, which had been Prince's 
study, and that they had been left there for years — 
Prince died in 1758 — without care. 

Evidently the Old South congregation did not 
greatly value its legacy at the time that it was re- 
ceived, and it seems just as evident that all the " idle 
and pilfering hands " that were laid upon it were 
not those of British soldiers, for the spectators in 
the gallery had as ready access to the steeple cham- 
ber, and such books as later turned up, bearing 
Prince's name or the bookplate of the New Eng- 
land Library, were mostly excellent selections, and 
when sold brought fabulous j)rices. 

When Washington made his triumphal entry 
into Boston, in March, 1776, he entered this build- 
ing on his way down the street since called after 
him, and looked down from the east gallery on the 
scene of desolation. The interior was restored in 
1783. 

The first length of Washington Street, laid from 
the Old State House to the Old South Church, was 
called Cornhill; its first extension, to Summer 
Street, was Marlborough Street, so called in com- 
memoration of the victory at Bletiheim, and a few 
years later the "waye" was further opened under 
the name Newbury Street. 



408 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

Aniongst the first group of buildings must have 
been conspicuous the governor's house, at the cor- 
ner of Spring Lane, the first Town House, a 
wooden structure on the site of the present Old 
State House, the cedar meeting-house, and the first 
King's Chapel, built of wood, in 1688, upon the 
border of the Common. 

The Old State House marks a focal point for 
interest in historic Boston. The town began around 
the market place, wliich was at the head of a 
short nameless way, appearing on the earliest map, 
leading up from the water to the hills, dotted on 
both sides with the homes of the first settlers. 
Everything in Boston seems to have been burned 
at least once. The first Town House, we read, 
stood from 1658 to 1711, when it was destroyed by 
fire. Its immediate successor shared a similar fate, 
and the present building dates from 1748, the bricks 
of the second structure having been used in its re- 
construction. The present restoration, dating from 
1882, was thoroughly done, and the exterior is quite 
a faithful copy of the old. The old pitch roof was 
rebuilt upon the original timbers, and on the eastern 
gables copies of the lion and unicorn of the original 
building were placed, and subsequently, to appease 
the citizens who objected to this part of the restora- 
tion, a gilt eagle was set up on the western front, 
with the State and Citv Arms. 



I 




ST. PAUL S CATHEDRAL. 

FROM AN ETCHING BY SEARS GALLAGHER. 



OLD LAXD^IARKS 409 

As the royal proclamations had heen read from 
the balcony at the east end, so from the same place 
the Declaration of Independence was read, on July 
18, 1776, and, as the finale to a day of patriotic 
rejoicing, a huge conflagration was made in King's 
Street, in the square before the State House, when 
all the royal and tory symbols, the King's Arms, in 
whatever form, were torn from their settings and 
burned with much rejoicing. The lion and unicorn 
from the State House were amongst the first relics 
of the old regime to be cast into the flames. More 
than a century later Walter Griffin, the landscape 
l^ainter, then a young art student, working at 
sculpture for a livelihood, while studying drawing 
and painting at the old Boston Museum school, was 
commissioned by the architect of the reconstruc- 
tion to model the copies which replace the ancient 
signs. 

The originals were in bas-relief and Griffin's 
models were the same, but the wood carver cut them 
in full relief, which accounts for their odd effect as 
seen from the rear. When they were placed on the 
building, bright with gold, the Irish party then in 
Boston made a demonstration, taken up by the 
newspapers of the time, and threatened vengeance 
upon the sculptor and destruction to the lion and 
unicorn. " But," writes Mr. Griffin, " I still live, 



410 A LOITERER IX XEW EXGLAXD 

and on my last visit to Boston I noticed they were 
still in place." They made quite the picturesque 
feature of the old building. 

The period of granite building in Boston began 
with the erection of King's Chapel in 1849, from 
the plans of the distinguished English architect, 
Peter Harrison, a pupil of Sir John Vanbrugh, and 
in his youth emplo>ied with his chief upon the work 
at Blenheim. He came to this country with Dean 
Berkeley and Smibert about 1729, and settled at 
Newport, building there the Redwood Library, 
which stands a well-known monument to his skill. 

King's Chapel then was the first building in 
Boston to have the care of a trained architect in its 
design. As Peter Harrison planned it the tower 
was to have been completed by a lofty spire, but 
lack of funds prevented its erection as well as that 
of the peristyle wliich surrounds the base of the 
tower, this being not added until 1790. King's 
Chapel was built of coarse boulders dug out of the 
ground and split and hammered according to the 
primitive method in vogue at this time. There is 
a tradition that the boulders used in this building 
were split by building a fire upon the stone to heat 
it, and then breaking it apart by dropping heavy 
iron balls upon it. When the work was finished it 
was the wonder of the countryside and people trav- 



OLD LANDMARKS 411 

elled miles to gaze upon its sober charms. At the 
present time it gives to this lower end of Tremont 
Street a cool, serious dignity, standing sentinel-like 
beside the graves of the ancient dead in its shady 
burying-ground. 

To this quarter was added, in 1809, Park Street 
Church which presides so quaintly over the artless 
Common, and, in 1819, St. Paul's Cathedral built 
by Solomon Willard, the architect of Bunker Hill, 
and Alpheus Carey, mason. St. Paul's set the pace 
for that series of Greek temples which sprung up 
throughout the lower part of the city in the next 
half century. The capitals of the columns which 
support the pediment were carved by Willard, and 
the pediment itself was to have contained a relief, 
in stone, of Paul preaching at Athens. Requisite 
funds were wanting, however, to carry out his 
design and the rough-hewn blocks remain to this 
day. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
MONUMENTAL BOSTON 

Copi.EY Square, while presenting every appar- 
ent advantage of space and light and air, fails of im- 
pressiveness as a focal point of some importance, 
fails notably as a setting for Boston's chief archi- 
tectural monuments — Trinity Church and the 
Public Library — which sit tentatively upon its un- 
yielding edges. 

The mere vacant triangle, outlined by parallel 
rulings of utilitarian car tracks, after the manner of 
a mechanical drawing, offers nothing but its levelled 
grass within prim granite copings to distinguish it 
from the empty lot it so stupidly resembles ; and so 
far from drawing the neighbourhood together, in 
the friendly fashion of such green spaces, serves 
rather as a rigid division between its incompatible 
elements. 

The whole lamentable inadequacy of Boylston 
Street to react to its charming environment, to 
adapt itself by any contributed beauty of fac^ade 
worthy of the border of such handsome greeneries 
as the Common and the Garden, the latter, however, 

412 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 413 

somevvluit despoiled by the eiiierjL*enc'e of the siil)- 
way along its southern side, eulniinates in the anti- 
climax of Cople}^ Scjuare, — this blank, angular, 
wholly negative fragment, which marks the birth of 
Huntington Avenue and offers cold resistance to 
the appeal of opulent, Romanesque Trinity, to the 
charm of the chaste and elegant Florentine library, 
to the clash of these monumental forces with the late 
Centennial remnants on Boylston Street, the 
whole attempted dignity of the square ebbing away 
in the scallywag outlets towards Roxbury and the 
rarefied reaches of Brookline. 

If ever a spot invited " treatment," drastic reor- 
ganization, Copley Square simply cries aloud in its 
])light, cries aloud to the merest passer-by, to the 
most casual of loiterers. What it must say to archi- 
tects, to local architects to whom its case is an un- 
ending reproach, might make interesting reading; 
but where doctors disagree nothing is done, and 
though plans have been many for its improvement, 
nothing clever enough has yet been devised to suit 
everybody, nothing clever enough, either sunken 
garden or whatever, to unite its all too antipathetic 
features. 

The name, Copley Square, out of respect, of 
course, for Boston's celebrated artist, strays away 
from the locality of the painter's estate on Beacon 



414 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

Hill, to the Back Bay, here to record the environ- 
ment of the old Art JNIuseiim, the first building of 
importance to pitch upon the made land of the tide 
water mud flats. It stood, where now stands the 
Copley Plaza Hotel, on the south side of the square, 
and superseded a temporary wooden structure, 
known as the Coliseum, erected at the close of the 
Civil War to house the Peace Jubilee and Music 
Festival, conceived by the famous bandmaster, Pat 
Gilmore. 

The first museimi, a cheerful brick creation with 
terra cotta trimmings, presided over the square in 
homely, genial fashion and gave the note to the new 
development of the quarter. Opened in 1876, the 
building was strictly " Centennial " in character, 
though it passed oflicially as " Venetian Gothic." 
It had a central and two end pavilions with gables ; 
its first story presented a line of high, arched win- 
dows, above which were mosaic panels and, at the 
ends, two large allegorical compositions in terra 
cotta, representing " The Genius of Art " and " Art 
and Industry." Worked into the decoration also 
were heads in relief of Copley, Allston, Crawford, 
and other famous American artists. Its roof dis- 
played the essential skylights, and, whatever its de- 
fects, the old museum had at least one great advan- 
tage over its ambiguous successor in Huntington 
Avenue, it looked preeminently its part. 




KyUESTRIAN STATUE OK fikoKGE WASHINGTON, 
BV THOMAS BAl.L, BOSTON, 1859. 



>A'.Nr STEPHEN . i^* . .x. .x.VX.^ 
MUSEUM OF FIXE ARTS. 



FALLING CajVDIATV>R. BY PR. RIMMER. 
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, 




MOXIMKNTAL HOSTON Ho 

It came as tlic t'liliiiiiiation of an aiiislic iini)iilsc 
that was stirrin*;' in the whole of the rei»'cnerate(l 
Back Bay. The hiving out of Coinnionwealth 
Avenue suggested sculpture, and as early as 
1804 Dr. William Rimmer, the physician-painter- 
sculptor, had received a commission from Thomas 
I^ee, a citizen of Boston, for the erection of the 
granite statue of xVlexander Hamilton, at the head 
of the avenue, and in 1869, Thomas Ball's eques- 
trian of Washington was placed in a conmianding 
position, facing it, within the Garden. 

Boston's ])ul)lic monuments are chiefly the work 
of Boston sculptors, either native or ado])tive. The 
youth of Boston, in a manner, passed through the 
hands of Hunt, who brought the JNIillet tradition to 
America, and of Dr. Rimmer, that legendary char- 
acter who lived and died in obscurity and poverty 
in Boston, and whose importance to his epoch is 
only beginning to glimmer in the offing of the 
casual mind. Dr. Rimmer's lectures in anatomy 
were famous in this city of lectures, and were widely 
attended — even La Farge studied under him — 
but, aside from INIr. Bartlett's a})preciation of the 
artist,' his name has been allowed to lapse almost 
utterly into oblivion. 

Rimmer was a romantic figure. His father, pre- 

^ Art Tjife of Dr. William Rimmer, by Truman H. Bartlett. 



41(J A I.OITKKKK I\ XKW ENGLAND 

suniably a l^'rciicli noble, iissuiiied the name, Rim- 
mer, assumed the trade of cobbler, lived in seclusion, 
but educated his sons to be idealists and gentlemen. 
Dr. Rimmer's contribution to the art of his city is 
fragmentary, he had a touch of the genuine sacred 
fire, but never ^wholly developed his gift, nothing 
that he did is an unqualified success. At the Mu- 
seum of Fine Arts may be studied his head of St. 
Ste2)hen, carved in granite, and his " Falling Gladi- 
ator," in bronze. 

About the year 1864, some influential friends of 
Rimmer's obtained for him a commission to create 
for a conspicuous location in the new Common- 
wealth Avenue his first public monument — the 
Alexander Hamilton. Perhaps the statue is cu- 
rious rather than fine; one can see that Rimmer 
was not quite a sculptor, yet the thing has dignity 
and an admirable simplicity, an artistic quality 
lacking in many of the more pretentious works 
of well known men. Among the numerous inep- 
titudes of local sculptors, which have in one way 
and another gained foothold in the city, the stone 
portrait stands its ground as a work of art, how- 
ever incomplete. 

Really serious rivals in this respect in Boston 
might almost be limited to the admirable statue of 
General Warren, by Paul Rartlett, in Roxbury, 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 417 

and Richard E. Brooks' well modelled Colonel 
Cass, in the Garden, facing Boylston Street. 

The subject of JNIr. Brooks' statue, Thomas Cass, 
was colonel of the "Irish Fighting Ninth," Massa- 
chusetts Infantry. After the close of the Civil War 
a few of the colonel's old sailors raised the money 
for a monument intended for the cemetery, to mark 
the grave of their leader. A miserable granite fig- 
ure with a tin sword was the result, with which a 
few Irish aldermen of Boston were so pleased that 
they voted to have it put in the Garden. There was 
in those days no art commission to regulate matters 
of civic adornment and the statue stood a disgrace 
to the city, until Josiah Quincy became mayor, when 
lie jiroposed to take down the old figure and ^Nlr. 
Brooks was commissioned to make the present 
statue. At this time the sculptor was living in 
Paris. His statue exhibited at the Salon of 1898 
received a gold medal; shown again at the Paris 
Exposition of 1900 it received another and at the 
Pan American Exposition, a third. 

Disdaining models or any creature comforts. Dr. 
Rifnmer made the model for his statue in eleven 
days, in the month of December, 1864. He worked 
in an unoccupied and unheated church, in Chelsea, 
suffering the enormous inconvenience of the freez- 
ing of the clay, and subjecting himself to every 



418 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

hardship. The statue was cut at Quincy, in Con- 
cord granite, and the completed figure was erected 
in 1865, upon a pedestal designed bj^ Colonel Cabot, 
ornamented by three profiles of Washington, Ham- 
ilton, and Jay, in a single medallion, modelled by 
the sculptor. 

Hamilton, as Dr. Rimmer conceived him, wears 
the ruffled stock, the tight coat of the period, and a 
toga, caught over his left arm, drops about his feet, 
giving strength to the base. The head is a convinc- 
ing portrait, it has the living quality; the stone, 
though worn, has a soft, fleshy character through 
the coat, and one feels that the structure is there. 

Thomas Ball's equestrian portrait of Washing- 
ton, which stands with gallantry and commands the 
prospect of Boston's wide avenue from the head of 
the Garden, is one of the earliest monuments erected 
in Boston, was the first equestrian placed in New 
England, and the fourth in the United States. It 
was unveiled in 1869. 

Considering the difficulties under which he la- 
boured and the inexperience of the sculptor, the 
group is remarkably successful. Ball had not the 
strength, the mentality, nor the education of Ward, 
whose equestrian of the same subject dominates 
Union Square, in New York, yet he presents his 
subject with style, and his own simple and human 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 419 

autobiograjjhy shows a man of so little personal 
vanity and so much integrity of purpose as to dis- 
arm criticism. 

We may gather, from an allusion in the auto- 
biography, that a desire to make a statue of Wash- 
ington had lurked in Ball's head ever since a visit 
made in his extreme youth, hand in hand with a 
greatly loved father, to the State House to see 
Chantrey's Washington, which had recently been 
placed. His father inviting his opinion, the child 
asked with naivete, " if that was a real sheet 
wrapped around him." " I was very young then," 
writes Ball, " but I have many times since looked at 
it and never wondered why I asked the question." 

The rigours of the New England winter figure 
largely in all these accounts of early sculpture and 
painting; one wonders why they did not wait for 
mild weather, or was it the New England con- 
science which revelled in hardship? Ball modelled 
his group, he tells us, in plaster, instead of clay, on 
account of the impossibility of keeping the temper- 
ature of his studio above freezing on winter nights. 
He made a primitive skeleton structure of his own 
invention upon which he built up the figure with his 
own hands in plaster, passing the whole of the 
colossal group, to say nothing of the waste, through 
a two quart bowl. Not the least interesting detail 



420 A LOITERER IN NEW EXGLAXU 

of the modelling is the bent foreleg, with which Ball 
had untold difficulties. In the end Hunt, the 
painter, was called in consultation, and the leg as it 
stands is his work. 

The best thing one knows of Ball's young ap- 
j.rentice, IMartin Milmore, is French's memorial — 
" Death Staying the Hand of the Young Sculptor " 
— ^ erected to the memory of his fellow student in 
Forest Hills Cemetery. This is a youthful work of 
Daniel Chester French; it brought him his first 
recognition, a medal at the Salon of 1892, and the 
relief has a charm which the sculptor has never 
surpassed. 

Civic consciousness in Boston, fostered by the 
erection of the early monuments, brought about 
ambitions for modish, imported architecture. In 
1870 Henry Hobson Richardson, having returned 
opportunely from years of study in Paris, with all 
the lore of the Beaux Arts at his fingers' ends, won 
the competition for the new Brattle Square Church, 
on Commonwealth Avenue, with its beautiful 
tower, interesting as showing Richardson's first 
approach to Romanesque work, important as the 
precursor of his chef dfoeuvre. Trinity Church, in 
Copley Square. 

Richardson had not to plume himself wholly upon 
the success of this building. Both practically and 




COLONEL THOMAS CASS, 
BY RICHARD E. BROOKS. 
PUBLIC GARDENS, BOSTON. 



COLONEL THOMAS CASS. 
STATUE IN 

THE BOSTON PUBLIC GARDENS. 
py RICHARD E. BROOKS. 





Copyright. D. C. French 



PEATH STAYING THE HAND OK THE SCULPTOR, 
BY DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH. 
FOREST HILLS CEMETERY. 



MOXr.AlEXTAL BOSTON iJl 

artistically it fell short of the mark. Its acoustics 
were poor and there is a lack of correlation between 
the small cruciform church and its lofty tower. It 
has been said that the chief intrinsic beauty of the 
church is also its chief defect, for, spurning the 
support of the adjacent walls, the tower rises like a 
campanile, with a superb gesture of strength anil 
independence that seems to cast oif the cluttering 
of the earth-bound house of worship. 

The feature of the tower is a frieze of sculptured 
stone, modelled by Bartholdi. and carved by Italian 
workmen in place. The French sculptor had come 
to this country, just after Vanucc terrible, to work 
upon his Liberty for the Xew York Harbour, mak- 
ing his model for the statue in La Farge's studio. 
It was there that he met Richardson, acepting joy- 
ously a commission, which certain prominent Xew 
York sculptors had refused as a mere stone-cutter's 
job, and executing the models in Paris. The sub- 
jects show the Wedding, Baptism . Com munioti, and 
Death in four panels joined at the corners by trum- 
peting angels. The material is a light-coloured 
stone and the angels' trimipets are gilded. The 
roof is of red tiles. Tower and church are built 
of warm, yellow-tinted pudding stone, streaked 
with darker iron stains that relieve monotony and 
accent the trimminos. Into the relief Bartholdi in- 



4ee A 1.01TKRKR IX NKW KXGLAMl 

The to^tner bis ibraiTs Keieti ji fiavoiimte ^tii tJie 
|wi>jNle of B<>5*cw uid mken, «ihr ai f e^ years SLfter 
its ef>ecl3oik tlie dmitli esame upon tlK nttiixt and 

W3fc«; thretti^ — '^ ^ *^.'«w tlMRe mas ;t skikt^ 

n^etittosx . - . .rand to leaiT^ ft stand- 

ii"4ar ill tJ>e nixisi of s ^*t^ r«?4:. t?' ^«*^A end snne 
nx«^y >8nas ^Jiibssi:- . ^ ^anas saved, 

ho^^oevej, W the piiT-v-hssi; .'•Mrdi iwr its pr^- 

C'r:t *x>papa3it, tJ>e Vir> '" <! ScX'jetv, 

wade in a wav < 

. . .".twn «: 

tv^ ^ ,." i*'SV^^^^»S - ^ ,:'» 






Mc>MMKMAl. KOSTOX i2,S 

with j^\mo of the K^t men of tlw day -Kichanl M, 
Hunt, John 11. Stnrj^is, Pc^Kviy and Steams, 
Ware and Van Bnmt, and ^^ A. Potter. The 
fante of its rector, the wealth of tlie CH^njrrejjation, 
the OMispiciuHJS >;ite, ihs ijJt^lation n}x>n an irreijiilar 
piece oi land, o^x^ii i>n all sides, wore all |VMnts 
\\~hich made the ci^nix^tition for this church a cri at 
opix^rtimity for a ytHnii; architect. 

At the time of the hnmin^ of the old Xew Trinity 
on Snnnner street, in the tire of 187:i, the pn-^ject for 
the new hnildinsj >vas well ad\^i>cetl. Kichanlson's 
design had Kx^n chosen and >\^s Winij carrieti out 
with much elaK^ration. The character of the desiiri^ 
and the nature of the irn^md hrouirht pn>hlems for 
the i9i>lution of which no familiar preceiient eixistetl. 

As Richanlst^n himself explains, the irri^nnd con* 
sisteil oi a com|\act stratimi overlaid hy a quantity 
of alluvium u)x>n which a mass of gravel aK>nt 
thirty feet deep had Kx'u tilled. l^pt~»n such a fo\m- 
dation was to he huilt a structure whose main fea- 
ture was a tower weighing nearly nineteen million 
]K>imds and sup|x>rteil u]x>n four piers. 

The pri>hlem has heen ing>eniously raet. The 
plan of the church is a I^tin Cross with a semicir- 
cular apse addeii to the eastern arm. The style is 
a free rendering of the French Romanesque, as 
kiHJwn in the '"ix'aceful, enlighteneih and istilated 



424 A L()ITKin:i? IX NEW EXGLAXU 

cities ol' .Vuvergiie." (1 (jiiotc the architect.) The 
centra] tower, a reminiscence perhaps of the domes 
of Venice and Constantinople, was here fully de- 
veloped so that the tower becomes in a sense the 
church and the composition takes on the outline of 
a pyramid, the apse, transepts, nave, and chapels 
forming only the base to the obelisk of the tower. 
The building faces three streets, and the tower, 
centrally placed, belongs equally to each front. 

Within, decidedly the most interesting feature of 
the construction is the four piers which support the 
enormous weight of the tower. Richardson ex- 
plains that he intended to leave these bare to show 
the massive character of the stone, but as the decora- 
tion of the church progressed, under La Farge, 
they proved to be too cold in colour to harmonize 
with the warmth of the growing interior. They 
rest fundamentally upon piles and their bases de- 
scend step by stej) in a widening area until the four 
meet in a common subterranean foundation. 

Trinity Church offered to La Farge his first op- 
portunity for important mural painting. The ar- 
chitect and artist had met some years before, but, 
according to the hitter's own word, Richardson be- 
lieved in him and offered him the job without much 
proof of his ability. The two were of about the 
same age — I^a Faro-e was three vears the elder — 



MONUINIENTAI. 1U)ST()X 42.5 

and had received something of the same training in 
Europe and shared one another's enthusiasms. Only 
impetuous youth would have attempted what these 
two undertook so blithely, achieved so brilliantly, 
for as the painter writes " from first talk to finished 
work " he had scarce five months in which to deco- 
rate the church. 

Richardson put the project before him in Sep- 
tember, 1876, and his promise was to complete it 
by the end of the year. When La Farge and his 
assistants set to work the church was in an unfin- 
ished state and in incredible confusion the artists, 
wearing overcoats and gloves against the bitter 
vagaries of the oncoming New England winter, 
which howled through the open windows and roof, 
competed with masons, tilers, and carpenters for 
foothold upon the common scaffoldings. From 
time to time a tile would fall through a hole in 
the roof and kill a man, four workmen were thus 
sacrificed, but it was not until a falling plank just 
grazed Phillips Brooks himself, who happened to 
be in the church, that the committee detailed an 
extra man to watch the dangerous hole. 

American mural painting was at this time in its 
incipiency. There is an amusing record in Hunt- 
ington Hall, the central building of the old Insti- 
tute of Technology, of one of the earliest attempts 



]<2(> A LOITKKKR IN NEW ENGLAND 

at decoration in this country. This is a restored 
frieze representing the industrial arts, taught in the 
school, painted in 1871, by Paul Nefflen, of Wiir- 
temberg, who came to this country, in 18.51, and 
occupied a studio in Tremont Street. There were 
twenty panels done in water colour directly on the 
plaster. During the summer of 1898, in the course 
of an access of zeal in house cleaning, these decora- 
tions were scrubbed off. Later they were restored 
from the original cartoons, by students in the ar- 
chitectural department. According to the restora- 
tions they were little more than delicately coloured 
outline drawings. 

It was five years later that La Farge began 
his work for Trinity, and still later that William 
Morris Hunt made his interesting experiment in 
decoration for the Capitol at Albany. 

Under La Farge worked Frank INIillet, George 
Maynard, John Du Fais, Francis Lathrop, Sidney 
Smith, George L. Rose, and many minor painters, 
for, as he says, the need was so great that almost 
anybody was pressed into service. Often, he tells 
us, designs that were to be painted on the day were 
prepared only the night before, so that the tension 
was very great. In the end La Farge got a brief 
extension of time, finishing the work in February, 
in time for the dedication. Despite the great speed 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 427 

with which he worked the decorations as a whole 
present an agreeable unity and richness. 

" The amusing point to me," says La Farge,^ 
" was the application of certain Romanesque origi- 
nals to the spans I had before me and the introduc- 
tion of a great deal of very fine calculated detail 
into passages of necessary simplicity, and also the 
doing of this at a gallop. I think in one space, fif- 
teen feet square, there is not more than three or 
four daT^s' work, and everything was done in that 
way, but with extreme care, a care I have very 
rarely seen repeated in any modern work by any- 
body, unless perhaps we take some of the work of 
]Mr. Sargent, on which he has spent years and years 
of careful thought and elaboration. Part of my 
work, you loiow, is covered by the facing of the 
organ at the west end, so that that elaboration is 
hidden and the lines of my general composition are 
more or less destroyed. So of course all through 
the building the new additions are not connected 
with the old lines." 

The job stands as one of the extremely interest- 
ing efforts at mural painting in the country, pre- 
senting a quality of style and bigness, of glowing 
colour, and richness of detail; a massive ensemble 
eminently in accord with the style of the architec- 

* John La Farge, a Memoir and a Study. Royal Cortissoz. 



428 A LOITERER IX XEW EXGLAXD 

ture. The great hieratie figures whieh fill the vast 
spaces of the tower dominate, animate as with liv- 
ing august presences, the dusky richness of the 
Romanesque interior; the graceful angels adapt 
themselves fancifully to the curves of the arches and 
give relief, lightness, and charm. The success of 
Trinity Church established La Farge as a leader in 
mural painting and in the summer of 1877 he was 
asked to decorate St. Thomas' Church in New 
York, and so he was launched. 

Richardson's plan for the porch carried some 
twenty-five feet forward beyond the facade, w^as 
not completed until 1895, some years after the 
death of the architect. Amongst other later addi- 
tions is a part of the original tracery from a window 
of the ancient church of St. Botolph, in Boston, 
Lincolnshire, of which John Cotton w^as rector until 
he came to New England, in 1633. This was pre- 
sented by the vicar of St. Botolph's and placed here 
as a memorial of the church of the Forefathers. 

The bust of Phillips Brooks in the Baptistry is 
by Daniel Chester French. Of the varied windows 
the small square one, in beautiful red tones, over 
the altar in the Baptistry, was designed by Bume- 
Jones and executed by William Morris. There are 
other windows by Burne-Jones and William Morris 
and several by La Farge. 



IMOXUMEXTAI. BOSTON 429 

If Trinity Church cstabhshed Richardson as one 
of the first architects of the country, it also fixed 
upon him, for his remaining years, the Romanesque 
style which he here handled in its most picturesque 
grandem*. Its romantic, half-savage strength, 
mitigated by traces of refinement, the heritage of 
the luxury of the late Roman Empire, appealed to 
him strangely, answered to something native in 
himself. 

The transition from sumptuous Trinity to the 
cool simplicity of the Public Library is one that 
requires some mental readjustment, especially in 
view of the barren square upon which they compete 
for domination. When the promised sunken gar- 
den, with its marble balustrades, flights of steps, 
trees, shrubbery, fountain, and statuary, shall have 
added its softening influence to the crude realities 
there will be a neutral ground in which to turn 
round, in which to prepare the mind for the jump 
from Romanesque to Romanic or Florentine or 
whatever. And we are j^romised too that the 
sunken garden will react especially in the interest of 
the library, will give it apparent height, will relieve 
the slightly monotonous facade. 

However great the transition there is one strong 
bond between Trinity and the library; the archi- 
tects of the latter structure were trained in Richard- 



430 A T.OTTEKER IN NEW ENGLAND 

son's atelier. Stanford White was first assistant in 
the building of Trinity, Charles Follen McKim 
worked on the wanning design. There is no doubt 
that to the earlier architect, who with Richard Hunt 
had been the dominant influence in the profession in 
America, the young firm owed much of its 
thoroughness and skill. 

Though the library is credited to the firm, 
JNIcKim, JNIead, and White, it is well understood 
that the senior partner was the actual architect, de- 
signing the building from cellar to roof-tree. 
McKim was a Pennsylvania Quaker. Richardson 
was of the warm, southern temperament. His 
father was an Englishman, born in Bermuda, his 
mother a Priestly, of Louisiana — a granddaughter 
of the discoverer of oxygen. Richardson passed his 
boyhood in New Orleans. He was built upon a 
generous scale. Large, handsome, exotic, with 
huge round eyes, he looked as thoroughly the artist 
as the trencherman, and the memory of his hunger 
comes down with that of his stupendous capacity 
for work and the vast resources of his mind. " A 
pitcher of water, a pitcher of champagne, a pitcher 
of milk," these were his portions, ivith food to 
correspond. " His work, himself, his appetite, 
everything," says La Farge, " was on a grand 
scale." 




ENTRANCE, HUSTON I'UliLlC LJliKAKV. 




STATUE OK SIR HENRY VANE, BY FREDERICK MAC MUNNIES 
PUBLIC LIBRARY, BOSTON. iviuix jn itb. 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 431 

Cass Gilbert has recorded his memory of a first 
encounter with the architect, and his impression of 
a man of swarthy complexion and huge proportions, 
of a flaming note of colour in a large red and yellow 
tie " that looked as though trying to escape from 
his waistcoat and set fire to the building." He was 
a man of extraordinary appearance, says Gilbert, 
but with a singularly charming voice and manner. 

The picture of McKim is that of a more ascetic 
type, a man of conservative traditions. While his 
technique was superb, his knowledge profound, he 
had not the originality, the invention, nor the 
abundant nature of his chief. 

Most of McKim's buildings were pretty directly 
inspired by celebrated European models, many of 
them were almost literal importations. The imme- 
diate source of the Public Library was the Biblio- 
theque Sainte Genevieve, in Paris, a building dat- 
ing from the epoch of Louis Philippe, a building 
itself inspired by the palaces of Florence. So close 
a copy of its prototype in the Place du Pantheon, 
does the facade of the library present, that it has 
been said, with some exaggeration, that the only 
difference is such as would be caused by tracing 
with a blunt pencil. With it have been combined 
details from other celebrated buildings. The in- 
terior court is almost a facsimile of the lower ar- 



432 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

cade of the Palazzo Cancellaria, at Rome; the 
doorways to the entrance hall, from the vestihule, 
are exact copies of the entrance of the Erectheion 
or Temple of Erectheus on the Acropolis of Athens. 

As is usual in the work of INIcKim, Mead, and 
White the best of available artists were associated 
with the architects in carrying out the details of the 
work, so that, within and without, the library be- 
comes quite the thing to see in Boston, presenting 
as it does perhaps the most perfect specimen of the 
restrained use of decoration of the highest type. 
Everything was done in a leisurely manner — Mr. 
Sargent is still working on his panels for the side 
walls of the Sargent Hall — with a view to making 
the result of permanent value. The cornerstone 
was laid in 1888 and the building was finished in 
1895. 

Saint-Gaudens made the helmeted head of Min- 
erva on the keystone of the centre arch and the 
three i:)anels representing the seals of the library, 
the city, and the commonwealth, which so richly 
adorn the entrance. The seal of the library, which 
occupies the central position is from a design by 
Kenyon Cox, adapted by Saint-Gaudens Avith con- 
siderable freedom from the metal die to the marble 
tablet. The line of medallions, cut in granite, in the 
spandrels of the window arches, copied from the 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON r,y.i 

trade devices of the early printers and booksellers, 
mostly of the sixteenth century, were modelled by 
Domingo Mora. 

The sculpture before the entrance was assigned to 
Augustus Saint-Gaudens, but since he died before 
accomplishing it, the commission was passed to 
Bela Pratt, a resident scul])tor, or rather he some- 
how contrived to have his two heavy figures placed 
upon the pedestals left vacant for the Saint- 
Gaudens, groups. These may be considered amongst 
the positive mistakes of the charming edifice, while 
its negative error was the failure to accept Mac- 
Monnies' joyous Bacchante, with which McKim, at 
no expense to the city, sought to egayer the rather 
sober court. 

The true story of the Bacchante is a charming 
one until it meets with the attitude of the tmstees 
who rejected it as unsuited to the dignity of their 
court. It was a pure love offering from the sculp- 
tor to the architect and from the architect to the 
city. MacMonnies, who as a boy in Saint-Gaudens' 
atelier had won the affection and sympathy of the 
great men who had haunted the place, had accepted 
a small loan from McKim when first he felt himself 
rich enough to sail for Paris and study. The loan 
had been long repaid, when MacMonnies, now also 
a famous man, found himself the author of his 



434 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

beautiful Bacchante, a figure made for himself, 
with no thought as to its destination. The young 
sculptor felt himself still under the obligation of 
McKim's early kindness and as an expression of his 
eternal gratitude offered his friend the original 
bronze as a gift. 

McKim, as we seem to divine, was delighted with 
the grouj), thought it so beautiful as to merit the 
most exalted of places, and not to be outdone by his 
young friend's generosity, presented it handsomely 
to the trustees of his new bi: Iding as a most worthy 
centre for the fountain in the court. Whereupon 
Boston reverted to type. All that was Puritan, 
brutally intolerant came to the surface. The 
charming statue created a perfect frenzy of antag- 
onism ; it was denounced in the most repellant man- 
ner by the journals of the city, and the trustees re- 
fused to have the solemnity of the library courtyard 
broke in upon by "an inebriated reeling female, 
and a depraved infant." The Literary World ^ re- 
viled it as " an affront of the grossest character to 
the best sentiments of the community," and went 
off in paroxisms over the temptations, excitations, 
and debasement of standards of the youth who fre- 
quent the library. 

McKim made the most eloquent of answers. He 

1 November 28, 1896. 




BACCHANTE , BY FREDERICK MAC MONNIES, 
OFFERED BY MC KIM 

FOR THE COURT OF THE BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY. 
OWNED BY THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM, NEW YORK. 




COLONXAUE, BOSTON" PlBLlL" LIBRARY. 

SHOWING FRAGMENT OF THE MuSCS. BV PLV16 DE CHAVANNES 




Vopijriijhl, l!n>:, li,,ston Public Lihrnry, Employes Associulioii 
Vopyriyht, 101 0, Tiuslfts Hoslon Lihmru 



MATKK noi.DKdSA, l!V JOUX SIXC.KK SARIIKNT. 



MOXU:\IEXTAi: l]()STOX 48.) 

withdrew his gift and presented it to the ISIetropoli- 
tan JMiiseuni. Later the Luxembourg JNluseum 
ordered a rephea, and we even find one now tucked 
away in a corner of the Boston IMuseum of Fine 
Arts. 

Immediately to the left of the entrance, in the 
vestibule, is JMacjNIonnies' statue of Sir Harry 
Vane, the cavalier governor of jNIassachusetts in 
1036-1 687, given to the library by Dr. Charles God- 
dard Weld, of Boston, in honour of James Free- 
man Clarke, the Unitarian divine, a trustee of the 
library. The subject has appealed to INIaclMonnies 
and he has thrown himself into the re-creation of a 
charming personality, the combination of gallan- 
try and gentleness, of bravery and refinement. 
Vane distinguished himself during his short term as 
governor by his tolerance and liberality of mind. 
These qualities served to defeat him for reelection, 
but he was immediately returned to the General 
Court by the inhabitants of Boston, by whom he 
was greatly beloved. 

Daniel Chester French made the three great 
bronze doors of the entrance hall, considered 
amongst his most important work. The six valves 
present panels with a single figiu'e in low relief, 
representing ^lusic and Poetry, Knowledge and 
Wisdom, and Truth and Romance. 



4;3(» A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

The interior of the Hbrary is so well known and 
lias been so widely advertised as to need hut a word 
of comment. Its most distinguished feature is the 
grand stairway of polished marble which leads to 
the main floor. The two maj estic lions which guard 
the landing, which gives uj^on the court, are by 
Louis Saint-Gaudens. 

The effectiveness of the stairway is nobly en- 
hanced by the panels of Puvis de Chavannes, the 
greatest of contemporary French mural painters. 
Of the three series of decorations in the library 
these j^ure conceptions of the Gallic master most 
perfectly reveal the art. Puvis in a few simple 
phrases reproduced upon the cards, which lie about 
the corridor for general information, gives the 
spectator the keynote of his subject, otherwise 
leaving his beautifully clear renditions to speak 
for themselves. 

The decoration for the wall of the corridor was 
first placed; the painter called it: Les Muses In- 
spirat rices Acclament le Genie Message?' de Lu- 
miere, a work nobly conceived, simply executed, 
the largest and most important of the nine panels, 
it has also the merit of being the most original, that 
is to say it is reminiscent of nothing else that Puvis 
has done. Perhaps it most resembles his great dec- 
oration in his native city, I^yons. Placed in 189.5, it 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 437 

is a work of his old age — he died in 1898 just after 
the completion of this commission. 

The Genius of Enlightenment, represented by a 
nude boy, occupies the centre of the composition. 
He alights upon a cloud, with wings outstretched, 
and holds the rays of light above his head in his two 
hands. Rising from the ground, the white-robed 
muses move slowly towards the Genius, extending 
their arms or softly striking their lyres to welcome 
him. The foreground is the summit of a hill, cov- 
ered with grass and heather. Slender saplings 
with delicately decorative leaves grow along its 
crest. Beyond is the sea. The composition is 
broken by the doorway leading into Bates Hall, 
and by way of tying the painting to its architecture, 
the painter has introduced the figures of Study and 
Contemplation, in monochrome, with the effect of 
sculpture, to harmonize with the mellow marbles 
and bear up the straight lines of the doorway. 

Out of this composition, Puvis explains, others 
have developed which answer to the four great ex- 
pressions of the human mind — Poetry, Philosophy, 
History, and Science. The eight panels which com- 
plete the tour of the walls of the stairway represent 
in charming, free allegory, Pastoral, Dramatic, 
and Epic Poetry; History, Astronomy, and Phil- 
osophy; Chemistry and Physics. 



438 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGEAXD 

Abbey's conmiissicin presented a different prob- 
lem. His series. The Quest of the HoUf Grail, 
occupies a frieze around the walls of the Delivery 
Room, a dark, sombre, palatial apartment, with 
heavy and elaborate marble mantel and doorways, 
and a fifteenth century Italian ceiling of painted 
rafters. The decorations, while open to criticism 
from the point of view of mural paintings, are im- 
mensely characteristic of the anecdotal style 
painter. They illustrate a beautiful story in a fluent 
and scholarly manner, are faithfid to fact and 
fancy, accurate as to costume — the painter's hobby 
— are drawn with strength and virility and are rich 
in colour. As records of the career of one of our 
most distingiiished American born artists, albeit his 
life was almost wholly spent m England, they are 
complete and satisfying. 

The third decorator of the library, John Singer 
Sargent, has lingered long over his work for the 
long, higli gallery which bears his name. The two 
ends and six connecting lunettes, of the Sargent 
Gallery, are already in place: yet to come are the 
paintings to occupy the three vacant panels on the 
east wall, above the long, straight stairway, lead- 
ing to the gallery. ^Ir. Sargent has chosen a com- 
prehensive and deeply significant theme for his 
great composition. Judaism and Christianity, or 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 439 

The Triumph of Religion, as the older title stands, 
is elaborated into many panels into which the some- 
what restricted space divides itself. The painter 
shows a large grasp of subject worked out with an 
immense amount of sumptuous detail, and has given 
to Boston, for naturally the tangible ^-eward of 
such labour is negligible, the epitome of his genius. 

As it stands the work covers a period of more 
than twent}" years of the artist's life and represents 
three periods within that time. The first sequence, 
The Judaic Development, covers the entire space 
at the north end of the hall, and was finished about 
1895. It includes the composition in the lunette, 
representing the Children of Israel under the yoke 
of their oppressors; the ceiling panel, with the 
Pagan deities, jNIoloch and Astarte; and the Frieze 
of the Prophets, with INIoses in high relief. The 
very natiu*e of this subject renders its simple telling 
perhaps well nigh impossible ; Sargent makes it rich 
and symbolic to the point of complexity, with the 
exception of the Frieze of the Prophets, which is 
lucid and simple. This section contains some of the 
most characteristic painting though it is less decora- 
tive in effect than the second section of the work, 
the lunette and frieze at the opposite end of the hall, 
placed about 1903. 

This second section, known as The Dogma of the 



440 A LOITERER IX NEW ENGLAND 

Redemption, is Byzantine in character, and Sar- 
gent is said to have founded the kinette, at least, 
upon a decoration in the Cathedral of Cefalu, one 
of the most beautiful and interesting churches in 
Sicily. This cathedral was founded in 1131 by 
King Roger, who returning safely after a danger- 
ous voyage from Calabria, erected it in gratitude 
for his preservation upon the spot where he landed. 
We have in the lunette the three Persons of the 
Trinity, their oneness made manifest by the exact 
similarity of their faces — the low reliefs having 
been cast from one mould — and by the fact that 
one vast garment envelops and unites them. 

The frieze of angels, which balances that of the 
prophets, is composed of the eight bearers of the 
Instruments of the Passion flanking the central 
figure of the crucifix with Adam and Eve bound 
with the body of Christ in a trinity of the flesh. 

The Theme of the Madonna in the niches and the 
connecting strip of ceiling at the south end of the 
gallery and the six lunettes of the side walls, form 
the third series of the sequence, installed in the sum- 
mer of 1916. One ma}^ see that as the decoration 
progresses it gains in clarity and purely decorative 
quality. The lunette, Law, done almost in mono- 
chrome, seems most perfectly to fulfil the province 
of mural painting. 




JOHN OUINCY ADAMS, BY JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY. 

PAINTED WHEN ADAMS WAS 2" YEARS OF AGE AND MINISTER AT THE HAGUE. 

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 




SELF PORTRAIT, PAINTED IN 1 849 I WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT. 
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 




THE FORTUNE TELLER, BY WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT. 
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 




PLAXTINC. POTATOES. BY JEAX KRAXi^OI? MILLET. 
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 441 

The key to the decorations is unfortunately long, 
and it is with pain that one sees daily groups of 
serious, conscienti(nis folk poring over its laboured 
composition, gazing with the affected reverence of 
the student anxious to miss nothing of the literature 
of the subject. Yet the literature of the subject 
seems in a way to defeat the best part of the cause. 
The jjrinted text fatigues the mind. One would do 
well, in my opinion, to disregard it utterly and to 
devote one's attention to the handsome painting, the 
masterly composition, the rich development of 
colour. 

Puvis with his few graceful phrases presents his 
serene theme without the bore of a lesson to be 
learned; Sargent could do as much, or as little, and 
allow the spectator, however attentive in his desire 
to understand, more freedom of imagination, more 
pure artistic delight in the thing of real importance 
in his work. C'est tres Boston to take pleasure in 
the form of medicine, that is part of the eternal cul- 
ture bluff of the New Englander. Yet the mission 
of art is not to "improve the mind" — at least not 
in this pedantic fashion — but to react upon the 
sensibilities and the imagination, to stimulate, to 
please. All this Sargent does wonderfully without 
that printed text. That he himself has mastered 
his subject in all its ramifications is enough. With 



442 A LOITERER IN NEW ENGLAND 

that knowledge he presents it in a rich, deep, ilUi- 
minating manner that needs no lengthy discourse to 
back it up. 

Behind the Library and beyond Massachusetts 
Avenue Huntington Avenue has been devoted to 
the arts. Symphony Hall, the Opera House, the 
Conservatory, and finally the Boston Museum of 
Fine Arts stand within one neighbourhood, while 
beyond the Museum, upon the Fenway, is Mrs. 
Jack Gardner's palace, Fenway Court. 

The museum, dating merely from 1870 and for 
years without funds for purchase, has of late made 
tremendous strides and now takes rank with the 
best in this country. It excels in its collection of 
Greek sculpture, its Chinese and Japanese paint- 
ings, its Egj^ptian sculpture, its textiles, its nine- 
teenth century French paintings, with special ref- 
erence to Millet, and its collection of historic 
American portraits. There is also the special 
room devoted to the work of Boston's pioneer 
painter and patron, William Morris Hunt. 

The exterior of the building is cold and forbid- 
ding, while within the constant changes, due to the 
rapid growth of the collections and the constant ad- 
ditions and alterations to the building itself, defer 
that feeling of calm enjoyment indispensable to 
complete appreciation. Everything is on a big 




HEAD OF A GODDESS FROM CHIOS, 4TH CENTURY B.C. 
DEPARTMENT OF GREEK SCULPTURE, 
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 



APHRODITE, MARPLE. FOURTH CENTURY n.( 
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. 








ii.<>ji-.\ ;rrK vTLxr;.:iY, 




MAIH1XNA ANP THE OHILP. WITH SAlXTj; AXP AXGELS, BY FRA AXC.ELICO. 
MCs-ECM OF FIXE ARTS. 




PORTRAIT or FRAV FELIX HORTEXSCO PALAVICIXO. 

FAINTEP IX lOOO BY EL GKEv.0. 
Ml.<EVM OE FIXE ARTS. 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON US 

scale and one has the impression of unnecessary 
labyrinths of corridors, separating rather than con- 
necting galleries. As I write the central portion 
of the main floor is encased in scaffolding awaiting 
]Mr. Sargent's pleasure; for he is to decorate the 
ceiling of the dome. 

The American room of Coplej^s and Stuarts and 
their contemporaries contains many pictures on 
which the early fame of the museum rested. Not all 
of the Copleys displayed are owned by the ]Museum, 
but the collection, including the loans, is remark- 
ably rich and fine, unsurpassed. The Athenaeum 
portraits of George and ^Martha Washington are 
here deposited and are of particular value and in- 
terest as the originals from which so many copies 
were made. 

The collection of Sargent water colours is one of 
the great attractions to the museum, containing 
many favourites, and in some respects superior to 
the similar collection owned by the Brooklyn In- 
stitute. There is also a series of water colours by 
Winslow Homer, and a growing collection of the 
works in this medium by Dodge ^NlacKnight which 
form an excellent basis for future development. A 
series of drawings by Blake reveal the strength of 
that great English draughtsman. 

The Hunt room, situated directly over the me- 



444 A LOITERER IX NEW EXGLAXD 

morial library given by the painter's daughters, is 
artfully concealed and to be reached only by a spe- 
cial elevator. Were it not for the fact that its sit- 
uation is so obscure as to be passed over by most 
visitors, and that the room itself is not always pre- 
sented in just the most effective manner, one should 
almost be inclined to like its remoteness, which ogives 
it quite the air of a small sanctuary. Most of the 
better pictures are owned by the daughters and lent 
to the 3Iuseimi. 

Through Hunt came 3Iillet to Boston, for the 
American discovered the great Barbizon master to 
this coimtry. Already rich in the works of ^Millet 
the ^luseimi was enriched last year hy the bequest 
of the valuable Quincy-Shaw collection of Millets, 
which forms two interesting rooms. 

The foreign collections are incoherent but con- 
tain a nimiber of great pictures, notably a fine 
Greco, Portrait of Fray Felix Hortensio Pala- 
vicino, and an incomparable Lawrence, Portrait of 
William Locke. The collections of Chinese and 
Japanese paintings are extraordinary and with 
constant growth are becoming a great featiu-e of 
the ^luseum. 

It is greatly to be regretted that Boston allowed 
the famous Jarves Collection, now in Xew Haven, 
to slip through its fingers. In 18.59, eleven years 



MONUMENTAL BOSTON 445 

before the incorporation of the first museum in 
Copley Square, this collection of Italian primitives 
was offered the city as a nucleus for a museum of 
art. This offer was allowed to lapse, and the op- 
portunity passed. Ten years later a charter was 
applied for. The Boston Athenaeum had received a 
bequest of armour and the offer of funds for a room 
in which to exhibit it; the Social Science Associa- 
tion had conceived the idea of a public collection of 
plaster casts; the architectural casts of the Insti- 
tute of Technology had outgrown its quarters ; and 
Harvard College sought an opportunity to make 
its collection of engravings accessible to the public. 
These forces combined in 1869 and obtained a char- 
ter the following year, and the JNIuseum was in- 
augurated. The city gave the plot of ground at 
Copley Square and popular subscriptions furnished 
the building fund. 

The first exhibitions in the IVIuseum consisted al- 
most entirely of loans, but later both bequests and 
gifts enriched the resources of the trustees and the 
collections outgrew the first building and have 
spread throughout the vastness of the second. 
Boston's civic pride is great; it finds, perhaps, its 
most grateful outlet in the expansion of its 
museum. 



«^ 



il 



lbD78 



